Enacting tenant citizenship and struggles for the right to home: linking activist, active and community citizenship

Abstract

This paper examines how tenants in Denmark collectively enact their rights and challenge the neoliberal discourse that frames housing as an issue of personal responsibility. We show how these residents create a political subjectivity of tenants as citizens, drawing on and extending concepts of performative citizenship, by emphasizing the importance of homemaking and non-profit housing. Empirically, the analysis focuses on the movement Almen Modstand and the impact of the ‘Ghetto Plan’ legislation, which has led to the displacement of marginalized communities. Through frame analysis and ethnographic research, we highlight how both everyday community organizing and existing institutions of solidarity play a crucial role in new political subjectivations. Extending the concept of citizenship, we elaborate on a practice of defending, appropriating and extending institutions of solidarity, a process which we term as activist citizenship by active means, and conceptualize struggles for a right to home as an enactment of community citizenship.