Åse Richard: Dispossession by Renovation: Resisting Place Destruction in Gränby, Uppsala

Abstract

In the Swedish national debates, renovation is generally framed as a technical and economic necessity, yet it increasingly produces rising rents, tenure insecurity, and limited democratic participation, particularly for low‑income tenants. This dissertation examines how the Swedish Renovation Wave materialises in the Gränby neighbourhood in Uppsala and how tenants navigate and resist its effects across the pre-renovation, renovation, and post-renovation phases. It situates the renovation wave within broader processes of housing marketisation and an intensifying global housing crisis, in which rental housing has become a key site of capital extraction. 

Engaging with feminist urban geography and postcolonial scholars, the dissertation seeks to bring the dynamics of home into housing studies, treating the renovation of rental housing as socially embedded and an issue of housing justice. To capture the studied phenomena, the thesis seeks to move beyond ‘autopsy research’ by adopting a social constructionist mixed-methods approach that combines longitudinal ethnography, memory work, and discourse analysis. In doing so, the thesis aligns with scholarly efforts to reclaim power over who is remembered, and how, through the production of a ‘Gränby archive’. 

Through an analysis of the formation of hegemonic discourses, the thesis demonstrates how renovations of rental housing in Sweden systematically marginalise tenants’ knowledge, experiences, and claims to housing stability. It shows that contemporary struggles over housing unfold locally, through the intertwining of covert and more confrontational moments, emerging from everyday practices of care and negotiation. These practices simultaneously challenge technocratic narratives of inevitability and expose weak institutional accountability within the realm of renovation of rental housing in Sweden.

The dissertation finds that the Swedish Renovation Wave inflicted both material and discursive dispossession on tenants in Gränby before, during and after the actual renovation of the houses. It shows that dispossessive renovation manifests as a contingent process of place destruction rather than a bounded intervention, extending beyond the event. By conceptualising place destruction as a continuous, cumulative and contested process, the dissertation challenges dominant narratives of urban renewal and contributes to ambitions for obtaining a critical, justice-oriented account of contemporary urban renewal.