Policing tenancy: the struggle for housing and land in Los Angeles

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the role of state power, specifically policing, in the precaritization of tenancy. By focusing on nuisance abatement lawsuits, we demonstrate how the state intervenes in landlord-tenant relations to render tenants as nuisance and subject them to containment and removal. We interpret the dialectics of containment and removal as an important part of the struggle over land. If tenancy has typically been understood in relation to rent extraction, we are concerned with the relationship between tenancy and state-organized land grabs. The paper thus focuses on two conjunctures of redevelopment in Los Angeles. We further argue that while the legal-bureaucratic archives of state power rarely record tenant struggles, it is crucial to understand the tenant as a political subject. Through close attention to tenant struggles, and the community histories thereof, we demonstrate the hard-won, but fragile, victories achieved by tenants in the face of redevelopment.