Publication: El desahucio de viviendas y su incidencia sobre el sujeto. Una perspectiva antropológica
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2018-04-10
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Universidad Complutense de Madrid
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Abstract
A raíz del proceso de especulación inmobiliaria el bien vivienda sufrió un proceso de resignificación socio-cultural, pasando a ser valorado no solo por su valor de uso, sino también como una inversión. En este contexto los demandantes de vivienda fueron "conformados por" y "conformadores de" una racionalidad propietarista ilusionante en torno a la vivienda en propiedad. Estas lógicas fueron alentadas desde diversos ámbitos: legislativos, financieros, sociales y culturales, generándose representaciones en el imaginario colectivo que naturalizaron la propiedad. Los agentes sociales respondían con "ilusión" ante la idea de convertirse en propietarios. Esta emoción estaba conectada con el hecho de solventar las necesidades de alojamiento y también con los significados culturales compartidos en torno al bien vivienda en propiedad y a la racionalidad propietarista que lo circundaba. La "ilusión", desde una segunda acepción, se podía entender como una energía anhelante (Berardi, 2003) que se instituye en un motor del capitalismo, que ancla a los sujetos a un endeudamiento futuro que tienen que afrontar y a un mercado en el que actúan como oferentes de trabajo. A partir de 2007 el Euribor -el tipo al que están referenciadas la mayoría de las hipotecas- sufrió un incremento, lo que unido a otros factores, propició que aumentara el número de personas que no podían afrontar el pago de los préstamos hipotecarios. En el nuevo contexto socio-económico -el de la crisis-, el bien vivienda sufre una nueva resignificación y, ante la dificultad de enajenarlo, pasa a ser considerado un bien lastre, puesto que impide el retorno a los países de origen, en el caso de la población migrante, o la movilidad a otros contextos laborales más propicios...
As a result of the process of property speculation –from the late 1990s to 2008- housing has undergone a process of ocio-cultural resignification, going from being valued not only for its use value, but also as an investment. In this context, those seeking housing were “shaped by” and “shapers of” an exhilarating proprietary rationality regarding home ownership. These logics were encouraged from diverse legislative, financial, social, and cultural spheres, generating representations in the group imaginaire according to which property was the most desirable link to housing. And so property became naturalized. Proprietary logics materialize in the daily discourse of social agents through discursive objectifications such as: “renting is throwing money away” or “the price of housing never goes down.” These objectifications, on one hand, minimized the risks of the high indebtedness that had to be incurred to acquire housing, while at the same time promoting the goodness of investment. This corpus of objectifications was disseminated through interpersonal relations, through the graphic publicity of real estate agents and financial intermediaries, through the example of people who bought their homes, etc. Social agents responded excitedly to the idea of becoming owners. This emotion was connected to the fact of resolving housing needs and also to shared cultural meanings regarding home-owning as a good and with the proprietary rationality surrounding this good. This “excitement,1” in a second meaning, could be understood as an eager energy (Berardi, 2003) that establishes itself as a motor of capitalism, anchoring subjects in a future indebtedness that they have to face and in a market in which they act as people offering their work. However, acquisition would not have been possible without access to financing. The expansion of mortgage loans associated with bank securitization, together with the policies of objectives under which the representatives of the expert system operated, encouraged borrowers to relax their risk evaluation criteria. The relationship of those who sought financing and the expert system was mediated by the trust that those who sought financing placed in these experts, as well as by the honorableness that was attributed to their representatives. Starting in 2007, the Euribor –the reference rate for the majority of mortgages- underwent an increase, which, together with the abusive clauses of mortgage contracts and the effects of the crisis, noticeable in the increase in the unemployment rate, among other factors, favored an increase in the number of people who could not keep up with their mortgage payments under the terms established in their mortgage loan contracts. In the new economicemployment context, housing with a depreciated value, together with difficulties for paying mortgage quotas appeared, in the eyes of the indebted owners, as “a fraud” or “a swindle.” - Home ownership continues to be perceived as an ilusión, but now understood as an empty representation. In the new socio-economic context, the crisis context, housing, as a good, undergoes a new resignification and, in view of the difficulty of disposing of it, begins to be considered a burden, as it prevents people from returning to their countries of origin, in the case of migrant population, or from mobility to other more favorable employment contexts. People who have difficulties keeping up with their mortgage payments go to the financial entities, trying to find solutions that will allow them to continue to keep up with the payments, but they are not offered any alternatives at first. In parallel, they suffer a process of external sanctioning, that is, they are blamed for what has happened: “the thing is, if you couldn’t do it, you shouldn’t have gotten into it” or “they’ve been living above their means,” to which the self-blame that they inflict upon themselves must be added. This encourages the construction of guilty subjectivities and the genesis of a feeling of shame. The problems of housing and of mortgage default, whether or not they culminate in the loss of the property, mean a failure in life with repercussions that go beyond the material sphere for those who experience these problems. Thus, the violence of the process affects their health, for example. The body is deployed in context by the subjects, and these bodies are presented to those who can help them as discarded bodies, sick bodies, or medicalized bodies, that is, they are used –as Fassin (2003) says- as a resource to claim rights by appealing to “humanitarian reason.” On the other hand, once the process of mortgage foreclosure is finished, the family is evicted from the home with no provision for alternative housing; the people to whom this happens are left in a situation of distress after having been the object of what Galtung (1996) would not hesitate to describe as structural violence. At the same time, in 2009 the Spanish financial system initiated a process of bank restructuring, which meant the conversion of the old Savings Banks (Cajas de Ahorros) into banks and, in 2012, the SAREB (Society for Managing Assets Produced by Bank Restructuring, Sociedad de Gestión de Activos procedentes de la restructuración bancaria), or “bad bank,” was created. This process made the labyrinth of the expert system more complex, making it even more difficult for the people affected by housing and mortgage problems to find any solution to their problems. On the other hand, the problems of mortgage and housing default are evidence of processes of individualization (Beck, 2012), as well as the lack of family support networks for a relevant part of the “people affected.” At any rate, the impossibility of dealing with the housing problems in an individual fashion leads these people to contact the social groups that make up the battlefield for the right to decent housing and defense of the rights of mortgage holders. PAH-Madrid and the different housing assemblies of Madrid neighborhoods and villages, which have taken shape after the end of the 15M camp-out in the Puerta del Sol, are some of these groups.
As a result of the process of property speculation –from the late 1990s to 2008- housing has undergone a process of ocio-cultural resignification, going from being valued not only for its use value, but also as an investment. In this context, those seeking housing were “shaped by” and “shapers of” an exhilarating proprietary rationality regarding home ownership. These logics were encouraged from diverse legislative, financial, social, and cultural spheres, generating representations in the group imaginaire according to which property was the most desirable link to housing. And so property became naturalized. Proprietary logics materialize in the daily discourse of social agents through discursive objectifications such as: “renting is throwing money away” or “the price of housing never goes down.” These objectifications, on one hand, minimized the risks of the high indebtedness that had to be incurred to acquire housing, while at the same time promoting the goodness of investment. This corpus of objectifications was disseminated through interpersonal relations, through the graphic publicity of real estate agents and financial intermediaries, through the example of people who bought their homes, etc. Social agents responded excitedly to the idea of becoming owners. This emotion was connected to the fact of resolving housing needs and also to shared cultural meanings regarding home-owning as a good and with the proprietary rationality surrounding this good. This “excitement,1” in a second meaning, could be understood as an eager energy (Berardi, 2003) that establishes itself as a motor of capitalism, anchoring subjects in a future indebtedness that they have to face and in a market in which they act as people offering their work. However, acquisition would not have been possible without access to financing. The expansion of mortgage loans associated with bank securitization, together with the policies of objectives under which the representatives of the expert system operated, encouraged borrowers to relax their risk evaluation criteria. The relationship of those who sought financing and the expert system was mediated by the trust that those who sought financing placed in these experts, as well as by the honorableness that was attributed to their representatives. Starting in 2007, the Euribor –the reference rate for the majority of mortgages- underwent an increase, which, together with the abusive clauses of mortgage contracts and the effects of the crisis, noticeable in the increase in the unemployment rate, among other factors, favored an increase in the number of people who could not keep up with their mortgage payments under the terms established in their mortgage loan contracts. In the new economicemployment context, housing with a depreciated value, together with difficulties for paying mortgage quotas appeared, in the eyes of the indebted owners, as “a fraud” or “a swindle.” - Home ownership continues to be perceived as an ilusión, but now understood as an empty representation. In the new socio-economic context, the crisis context, housing, as a good, undergoes a new resignification and, in view of the difficulty of disposing of it, begins to be considered a burden, as it prevents people from returning to their countries of origin, in the case of migrant population, or from mobility to other more favorable employment contexts. People who have difficulties keeping up with their mortgage payments go to the financial entities, trying to find solutions that will allow them to continue to keep up with the payments, but they are not offered any alternatives at first. In parallel, they suffer a process of external sanctioning, that is, they are blamed for what has happened: “the thing is, if you couldn’t do it, you shouldn’t have gotten into it” or “they’ve been living above their means,” to which the self-blame that they inflict upon themselves must be added. This encourages the construction of guilty subjectivities and the genesis of a feeling of shame. The problems of housing and of mortgage default, whether or not they culminate in the loss of the property, mean a failure in life with repercussions that go beyond the material sphere for those who experience these problems. Thus, the violence of the process affects their health, for example. The body is deployed in context by the subjects, and these bodies are presented to those who can help them as discarded bodies, sick bodies, or medicalized bodies, that is, they are used –as Fassin (2003) says- as a resource to claim rights by appealing to “humanitarian reason.” On the other hand, once the process of mortgage foreclosure is finished, the family is evicted from the home with no provision for alternative housing; the people to whom this happens are left in a situation of distress after having been the object of what Galtung (1996) would not hesitate to describe as structural violence. At the same time, in 2009 the Spanish financial system initiated a process of bank restructuring, which meant the conversion of the old Savings Banks (Cajas de Ahorros) into banks and, in 2012, the SAREB (Society for Managing Assets Produced by Bank Restructuring, Sociedad de Gestión de Activos procedentes de la restructuración bancaria), or “bad bank,” was created. This process made the labyrinth of the expert system more complex, making it even more difficult for the people affected by housing and mortgage problems to find any solution to their problems. On the other hand, the problems of mortgage and housing default are evidence of processes of individualization (Beck, 2012), as well as the lack of family support networks for a relevant part of the “people affected.” At any rate, the impossibility of dealing with the housing problems in an individual fashion leads these people to contact the social groups that make up the battlefield for the right to decent housing and defense of the rights of mortgage holders. PAH-Madrid and the different housing assemblies of Madrid neighborhoods and villages, which have taken shape after the end of the 15M camp-out in the Puerta del Sol, are some of these groups.
Description
Tesis inédita de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociología, Departamento de Antropología Social, leída el 28-06-2017