Structures of feeling in the affective economies of renting in the Majority World: An interpretative synthesis of qualitative research

Abstract

Recent interest in private rented housing seen as a structural mechanism generator of inequalities of wealth, health and wellbeing has been dominated by accounts of tenants’ and landlords’ experiences in the Minority World. Advancing an interpretative synthesis of qualitative research focused on the understudied Majority World, hence a triple hermeneutic process of interpretation, this paper mobilizes Raymond Williams’ concept of ‘structures of feeling’ as a lens through which to engage with and better understand tenants’ and landlords’ experiences of renting in the different historical contexts of Eastern Europe, Western Africa and the Indian subcontinent. Drawing on three different theoretical routes, I develop a tripartite conceptualization of three structures of feeling – greed and exploitation, ethics of care, and cruel optimism – which inform my interpretative journey of substantiating the rich social tapestry of the affective economies of renting across 40 reviewed papers. Of a broader currency to housing and social policy studies, this theoretical interpretation shows that the affective economies of private renting are not only shaped by socioeconomic, political, regulatory or material structures but also by vivid structures of feeling that shape lived experiences in their own right as well as through their capacities of affecting those other structures.