In what ways has economic and social policy relating to housing generated structural violence and shaped forms of citizenship within the Lancaster Wes

In 2012, Political Scientist Kathleen Arnold argued that housing 'is the precondition of any
degree of citizenship', building on David Harvey's 2008 reflection that denying members of
a community the most basic provision of housing results in political disenfranchisement and
dispossession. The proposed project examines Grenfell Tower and Lancaster West Estate in
London, UK, situating them within a longer history of residential development in the area.
The project will focus on the manner in which housing policy was applied in the area since
the estate was built and designed in the 1960s and 1970s, with in-depth analysis of its impact
in the years leading up to the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017. In doing so, the research will
explore the utility of social harm perspectives in understanding policy impacts and
experiences of citizenship by marginalized populations.
The residents of Grenfell Tower and the Lancaster West Estate are ethnically diverse,
working class and poor, characteristics which in isolation, and combined, have proven
obstacles to claiming effective citizenship within the richest borough in England. The
research will use in-depth interviews and historiographic methodologies, and draw upon
previous engagement with residents to analyse the economic, regulatory and social policies
that have informed housing policy and planning in this specific geographical area. It will
examine the residents' experiences of claiming citizenship as manifested in their attempts to
be heard, and the responses to their claims from those responsible for managing the estate in
different periods of the area's development. In doing so, the project will explore how
residents, despite possessing formal citizenship rights, were prevented from exercising those
rights meaningfully, and examine the how the housing policies they fought to influence but
had little control over eventually contributed to the 2017 Grenfell Tower tragedy.