Housing struggles in Athens, Barcelona and Glasgow

Discussing convergencies and divergencies in collective strategies for claim-making

Maria Karagianni and Dimitra Siatitsa, in conversation with Melissa García-Lamarca, Neil Gray, Marta Ill-Raga, Matina Kapsali, Lazaros Karaliotas and Marianella Kloka

Published in Issue 8.1 // Conversations

Keywords: Housing struggles, right to housing, tenant organising, comparative urban studies, path dependency, social reproduction

Abstract:

Housing is a multidimensional issue: it is at once a fundamental human need, a critical resource, a pillar of urban economies, and a claimed human and/or social right. Radical claims articulated through housing struggles often shed new light on different facets of the ongoing housing crisis, while also functioning as meaning-making, performative practices in their own right. In January 2025, as part of the HousInC research project, we organised a workshop with activists and academics from Athens, Barcelona, and Glasgow to explore how housing struggles in times of crisis shape our understanding of the right to housing. This commentary offers a more structured reflection on that discussion.

http://doi.org/10.54825/HTWW2250

Maria Karagianni is an urban studies post-doctoral researcher (AUTh) working on the housing-environment nexus based in Greece. She is currently a member of the Radical Housing Journal editorial collective and CoHab action-research group on cooperative housing.

Dimitra Siatitsa is a post-doctoral researcher (NTUA/EKKE) working on housing and urban studies, socio-spatial inequalities and urban movements, with a focus on Southern Europe. She is a member of CoHab action-research group on cooperative housing and of INURA.

Melissa Garcia Lamarca is a teacher and researcher at Lund University and a co-founder and member of the Radical Housing Journal. Her research unpacks structural and lived urban (green/housing) injustices and how collective practices can generate more egalitarian alternatives.

Neil Gray is an independent writer/researcher based in Glasgow. He is the editor of ‘Rent and its Discontents: A Century of Housing Struggle’, and is currently finalising a book for Common Notions Press entitled ‘Take over the City: Spatial Composition in Italian Autonomy’.

Marta Ill-Raga holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Ghent (2024) and is a tenant organizer with the Catalan Tenants’ Union. Her research focuses on the politics of property and examines rent relations as a central dimension of contemporary class formation.

Matina Kapsali is a scholar-activist and a feminist urban geographer working around issues of social reproduction, political movements, housing and creative research methodologies. She is currently an Urban Studies Foundation Research Fellow based at the Geography Department, University of Manchester.

Lazaros Karaliotas is a Senior Lecturer in Urban Geography at the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow. His research focuses on urban infrastructures, migrant solidarities and urban emancipatory movements.

Marianella Kloka has been working as an advocacy officer at the social organisation PRAKSIS since 2013. She is currently president of the board of the Greek Anti-Poverty Network of NGOs and experts.

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