Legal Geographies of Displacement through Renovation: Legal Interpretative Practices in Sweden

Abstract

AbstractHow the legal is implicated in the production of space and how displacement is both a material and discursive process stands at the fore of this study. The aim is to examine how the law is interpreted in cases of approval of renovation of rental housing and how these interpretations are articulated, presented, and justified in the Swedish context. Questions on what definitions and justifications are used in the interpretative legal practice are linked to processes of discursive displacement of tenants. It is argued that the unequal relationship between property owners and tenants is sustained in this legal practice through the techniques of abstracting, naturalising, and shifting responsibility, and uncritically reproducing financial logics, thus contributing to discursive displacement of tenants. The arguments of tenants are silenced and circumscribed with economic and technical reasons, along with narrow and vague definitions, reflecting a position of privilege, and reproducing the politics of property.