Un-homing with words : Economic discourse and displacement as alienation

This paper is an investigation into the psychological aspects of displacement, where displacement is understood as a form of un-homing that severs the connection between people and place. Extending the human-geographical discussion begun by Mark Davidson and Rowland Atkinson on the possibility of being displaced while staying put, I argue that words and narratives – here exemplified by the Swedish (neo-classical) economic discourse on market rents – can displace people, and that this particular kind of un-homing is best understood as alienation. A theoretical underpinning is psychoanalyst Paul Verhaeghe’s work on identity and language and on the effects of neoliberal political economy on our psychological well-being. I analyze texts by and interviews with economists arguing for the abolishment of the ‘rent regulation system’ and find that their use of the terms ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ frames (current) tenants as undeserving and in the way. Economists encourage displacement (of people who lack the means to pay market rents), they gentrify with their words. By being told they are a ‘welfare loss’, tenants with affordable housing in attractive parts of the city are pushed to become critical on-lookers onto themselves, thereby dis-placed from the spontaneous act of dwelling and alienated from their original insideness. A larger conclusion is that the famous economist Milton Friedman was right: neo-classical economic theory, and homo neoliberalismus, in particular, does not respect geography. This disrespect, I explain, should be interpreted as a philosophical negligence towards human situatedness in place, and as an ethical carelessness towards people’s need for home