‘This Pain of Moving, Moving, Moving’: evictions, displacement and logics of expulsion in London

Watt, Paul (2018) ‘This Pain of Moving, Moving, Moving’: evictions, displacement and logics of expulsion in London. L’Année Sociologique 68 (1), pp. 67-100. ISSN 0066-2399.

Abstract

This paper provides an empirically-grounded, sociological reworking of Saskia Sassen’s ‘logics of expulsion’ with reference to London’s housing crisis and burgeoning homeless population. It does so by drawing on in-depth research on evictions and displacement undertaken with residents of temporary accommodation at three locations in and around London. The first is a north London public housing estate undergoing regeneration involving demolition. The second is post 2012 Olympic Games’ east London, while the third location is a town outside London and specifically a block of flats which is temporarily housing Londoners who have been displaced from the city. The paper offers three main conceptual insights: first it sociologically deepens and enriches works on displacement and evictions by classifying six distinctive logics of expulsion and tracing their effects on households; second it shows the importance of ‘recurrent displacement’ in relation to multiple forced moves; and thirdly it adds the notion of ‘displacement anxiety’ to the displacement conceptual repertoire.

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