Dr Maka Suarez (University of Oslo, Norway)
NOW ON ZOOM - After Debt: Transnational migration, counter-speculation, and the right to housing
What kind of politics are possible and necessary after mortgage default? How do people rebuild their lives after eviction and foreclosure? In this talk I address these questions by examining the intersection of international migration and the financialization of housing. In doing so, I show that mortgage default is not a zero-sum game whereby banks repossess a house and migrant debtors lose their home. Rather, I claim, if we pay attention to transnational household dynamics and the financial arrangements that enable ownership among Ecuadorian migrant families in Spain, we observe a different panorama. This approach illuminates a space of counter speculation in which remittances and mortgages are more than financial obligations. They become novel political coordinates beyond the ideological grid of left–right politics. Through their participation in La PAH, Ecuadorian activists developed resistance strategies for the movement for the right to housing that safeguard their families and future livelihoods, while, simultaneously, redefine the very concept of property in political terms.