From House to Home: Social Citizenship, State-Led Displacement, and the Haringey Development Vehicle

This project will analyse the struggle over the Haringey Development Vehicle
(HDV), a now-defunct redevelopment program in London, through the lens
of social and political geography. I plan to examine two phenomena: a
political dispute over HDV; and the social tensions between council and noncouncil
tenants (such as homeowners) over the questions of belonging.
HDV's relevance comes from its uniqueness-it was successfully stopped by
residents. I plan to investigate why this anti-regeneration campaign was
successful in contrast to other campaigns' failures. I will pay attention to the
following: how community relations shaped and were shaped by this
particular fight and how claims to a "social citizenship" were made and
received.
Here, one's type of housing helps determine one's "social citizenship" status
in the context of state-led displacement. Council tenants are marginalized in
ways traditional homeowners are not. Haringey council tenants, threatened
with state-led displacement, disrupted the everyday through protest in a bid
to obtain the same rights as traditional homeowners.
By interpreting the Haringey campaign through the lens of citizenship, I will
expand the literature in several ways. I lace together the "acts of citizenship"
theory with research on state-led gentrification resistance, providing a new
model to understand both. I also extend the literature on citizenship by
studying how authorities receive acts of citizenship. Understanding how
authorities accept or reject new citizenship-seekers is key to why an
outcome happened, rather than taking it as given. This research will enhance
our current understanding of, and the literature, on social citizenship.