Affect, collective action and the policy process in housing safety crises

Abstract

International failures in housing safety have created complex policy problems for national governments, as well as creating severe negative impacts for those living in homes with significant defects. This article focuses on two cases—the post-Grenfell building safety crisis in England, and the defective concrete blocks or ‘mica’ crisis in Ireland—to explore the relational dynamics of policy processes, focusing on the role of affects. Through in-depth interviews with 28 residents living through these crises, the research explores how policy shapes collective affects and how, in turn, feelings associated with the crises can be reconfigured through collective action to influence the policy process. The concept of counter-affects is mobilised to explain how the ‘subjects’ of policy interventions strategically deploy personal stories to shape new collective feelings about the crises, disrupting the operation of power through the policy process. By building counter-affects of solidarity, recognition, empathy, and outrage, collective movements associated with housing safety crises built a broader coalition oriented towards the achievement of policy goals. Whilst effective, this strategy also has repercussions in the re-enactment of feelings of crisis, uncertainty, and unsafety.