*5.2. Local Experiences of Dispossession and Displacement*

The intra-urban analysis of the temporalities and spatialities of dispossession patterns already brought to light that tenant evictions have been increasing in recent years and that real estate dispossession also affects commercial properties to a considerable extent. Now portraying the key findings of the standardized questionnaires conducted in the research area in 2018, I aim to further shed light on the concomitant precarizations in the access to living and working spaces. For this purpose, I will (i) outline the social profile of the interviewees before (ii) identifying contemporary and dominant forms of dispossession, also in terms of their spatial context. The section closes (iii) with an account of present housing uncertainties against the backdrop of high housing cost burdens.

Most of the interviewees were 18–50-year-old employees or self-employed shop keepers with comparatively high educational qualifications. Scholars have already highlighted the high level of over-qualification in the tourism sector, i.e., that job offers and income opportunities do not necessarily match the degrees achieved [103,109]. In addition, a large share of 65% of the interviewees did not live in the conurbation for more than four years, which is only consequential, given the predominance of migration backgrounds (mainly South America and EU member states). Accordingly, the local experiences of dispossession reconstructed here largely reflect more recent years and are, amongst other factors, shaped by alien status.

Considering the housing situation revealed that a large part of the interviewees now lived in rental housing, while mortgages did not attach much importance anymore. Thus, it did not come as a surprise that the interviewees saw rent increases as the essential reason for having to abandon and leave their living and working spaces involuntarily (see Figure 4); indeed, of the 50 respondents, 62% reported experiencing involuntary loss of residential and commercial properties themselves or hearing it from others. This is also true for people with migration backgrounds; of the 29 interviewees with foreign origin (outside of Spain), 55% experienced real estate dispossession, either directly or in their social surroundings. While the data is far from being conclusive here, it clearly is in line with a more recent case study from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria that shed light on the unequal exposure of the foreign population to real estate dispossession [110]. At the same time, the lower purchasing power of customers as a result of the crisis proved to be a major problem for shop keepers in particular, forcing them to close their stores. Since I conducted the majority of the interviews with shopkeepers, consequently two-thirds of the experiences of dispossession related to commercial properties. The involuntarily abandoned stores were, as might be expected, locally operated, tourism-oriented bars and restaurants, as well as clothing and decorating stores. Today, many of these stores are vacant, but the majority are managed by new owners, for whom some of the interviewed former shopkeepers now work as employees. By contrast, job losses and mortgage debt have ceased to be relevant drivers for displacement. An interviewed real estate agent confirmed this general shift, stating that since at least 2015, rent increases have started to be the dominant drivers for displacement, especially with the advent of short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb. That being said, there seems to be little sign of the housing vacancy that became such a common feature of the housing crisis as 36% of respondents had no knowledge of vacant apartments, while 52% stated that not a single apartment in their immediate area was vacant. In turn, 36% knew about short-term rentals in their neighborhood with individual respondents stating that, today, most apartments were rented to more affluent tourists. In other words, in the context of the financialization of the rental sector, new dynamics of dispossession and displacement are unfolding at the national [14] and regional level [4].

**Figure 4.** Reasons for dispossession (**left**) and type of ownership (**right**). Own elaboration.

The interviewees related their experiences of dispossession mostly to Los Cristianos and Playa de Las Américas, in part also to Tenerife and Lanzarote, i.e., to nearby local and regional contexts. However, many interviewees were unaware of the whereabouts of the displaced persons (insofar as they themselves were not affected)—which makes it clear that dispossession often goes hand in hand with the loss of everyday references, relationships, and bonds [48]. More general statements, in turn, argued that most of the migrants concerned had returned to their countries of origin, while many locals were forced to return to live with their families.

Furthermore, more than a decade after the GFC, a fresh start on the housing market still is out of the question, as the current income levels of the interviewees revealed staggeringly high mortgage and rent burdens. Indeed, out of the 80% of interviewees who lived in rental or mortgaged housing, 47.5% had to dedicate more than 40% of their income to monthly housing costs. These figures clearly exceed the threshold of 30%, which scholars frequently invoke in the debate on affordable housing [111]. On top of that, housing cost burdens are closely related to experiences of dispossession; those who have to bear high monthly housing costs tend to know more about dispossession and vice versa. In this sense, dispossession and displacement unfold especially in the quotidian life of low-income groups. Hence, more than ten years after the outbreak of the housing crisis, housing insecurity still shapes contemporary urbanism and the fortunes and misfortunes of urban dwellers in LC-LA.

#### **6. Discussion**

The interconnections of housing financialization and dispossession, observed at the global level, bear their own manifestations in the Canary Islands. The case study presented here pointed out that dispossession and displacement are increasingly reverberating in the rental sector in recent years—in a similar fashion to what scholars have already been observing at the global [30] and national level [14]. At the same time, however, the case study emphasized the contextual nuances or variegated logics of these global processes [89]. In Spain, housing insecurity stems in large part from politically questionable practices—involving inter alia, illegal mortgage lending, and the creation of REITs—that have enabled real estate speculation for decades without introducing any significant measures to guarantee affordable and accessible housing for low-income groups [13]. In the Canary Islands, this is closely linked with the formation of tourist accumulation regimes, set in motion by an alliance of big local landowners, foreign investors, and regional administrations from the 1960s onwards and backed by precarious labor and housing conditions [98,99]. This social polarization set the stage for the socially devastating effects

of the housing crisis and its persistence until today. It is important to note that the state played a key role here. With its adapted regulations, planning practices, and the ideological backing of capital interests, it enabled and steered the production of tourist spaces as a "spatial fix" for capital [100].

The case study of LC/LA allowed me to pin down this reconfiguration of displacement and dispossession dynamics and their unfoldment at the intra-urban level. The major share of dispossessions are mortgage foreclosures, which mainly concern residential properties and the historical center of Los Cristianos. At the same time, however, a notable proportion of dispossessions also involves commercial properties. Additionally, tenant evictions have experienced an upswing in recent years. In this regard, the standardized questionnaires illustrated that the recent financialization of the rental sector [14] in practice is tantamount to staggeringly high housing cost burdens. Rising rents, in this sense, ostensibly displace lowincome households and shopkeepers. Considering the genesis of Tenerife's accumulation regime, it is striking how low-income groups and vulnerable households for decades now have to bear the burden of an ideological project that (i) rests on the assumption of endless tourist valorization of real estate and was and is foremost (ii) led by capital interests but ultimately (iii) backed and fueled by state institutions. The theoretical contribution of this study, thus, lies in linking these distinct pathways of capital-switching in the Canary Islands since the 1950s with contemporary global debates on financialization and touristification. In this sense, it provides a more nuanced framework to trace and assess the emerging and prevailing urban inequalities of the archipelago.

Further research and data are necessary to gain more comprehensive insight into these dynamics. This implies outlining the intra-urban court-ordered dispossessions subsequent to the observation period, which should be spatially compared with the available supply of short-term rentals and their development over time. Along with this, in-depth qualitative interviews would allow me to delve deeper into the narratives and even lived experiences of dispossession beyond the mere quantitative data available, taking into account the perspectives of real estate agents, urban planners, social workers, and those affected by dispossession. Beyond that, expanding the research on intra-urban ownership structures would provide crucial and possible insights into the penetration of institutional investors into urban housing markets after the repossession of assets. On a conceptual level, the relationship between the price developments of local urban housing markets and the dispossession of low-income earners also requires closer consideration. This might imply working with extensive surveys to expand on the CPGJ-data's limits regarding household members.

However, more comprehensive social housing policies and a political commitment to implement them are also needed. In the Canary Islands, critical scholars debated and argued for a stronger regulation of the speculative tourist sector for years. Previous efforts to introduce a moratorium on short-term rentals have fizzled out though [4,112]. Given that national and regional policies, thus, show little willingness to provide affordable housing, the hope of critical scholarship rests on the insurgent practices of social movements [113]. In the years following the outbreak of the housing crisis, however, unlike in other Spanish cities, there has been no significant mass movement against housing displacement in the Canary Islands [114]. Regarding the south of Tenerife, the dispersed distribution of peripheral working-class settlements, combined with a migrant population working in the tourism sector but only loosely rooted locally, is likely limiting the possibilities for social mobilization. Future research, therefore, should also aim to engage residents and those affected more actively in the research process, as this has proven to be a helpful means of promoting collective self-determination [115]. Critical geographic research, thus, has a central role to play in mobilizing the numerous people affected by the displacement of living and working space in the Canary Islands, who have not yet achieved a meaningful and resistant form of collective organization.

What is more, the novelty of the current situation underscores the necessity of continuous critical research as it is vital to grasp how housing insecurities are shaped during and

beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. At a first and general glance, rather than being a social leveler, the ongoing pandemic proves to exacerbate pre-existing inequalities [116]. While the pandemic's more specific consequences in terms of its urban housing outcomes are difficult to predict at this stage, it is very likely that the relentless dynamics of real estate financialization will make the housing and living conditions of low-income city dwellers more precarious [49–87]. Tragically, as the pandemic advances, protest options are further hampered, because collective organizing, such as rent strikes, can only take place online or in compliance with social distancing [117]. Meanwhile, global investors like Blackstone are already preparing for a novel speculative round of housing accumulation on a large scale [79–86]. Precisely because of these uncertainties and ambiguities associated with the pandemic, it will be more necessary than ever for critical research to focus and expand on the dynamics of accumulation and dispossession. In that regard, the potential of critical housing research resides in providing more comprehensive and transferable knowledge of the pandemic's housing consequences and the obstacles that urban dwellers will face beyond the 2020s. To conclude with a hopeful notion, the acquired critical knowledge—if made properly available for the public in general and the people affected in particular—can then serve as a catalyst for societal change to expand (again) the social function of housing.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Since primary data was collected by means of questionnaires, all subjects involved in the study were informed about their aims and publication of the results.

**Data Availability Statement:** The Consejo General del Poder Judicial (CGPJ) provided the AT-LANTE database to colleagues of the Universidad de La Laguna. Unfortunately, the database is not avalaible online.

**Acknowledgments:** This paper has been possible thanks to the research projects of the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades. Agencia estatal de investigación: El conflicto urbano en los espacios de reproducción. La vivienda como escenario de conflictividad social (RTI2018-094142- B-C22); from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. Agencia estatal de investigación, y Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER): Crisis y vulnerabilidad social en ciudades insulares españolas; the project Contested Territories financed by the European Union research and innovation program Horizon 2020 with the reference Marie Skłodowska-Curie number 873082 (CON-TESTED\_TERRITORIES); as well as the Pre-Doc Award program at Leipzig University. I further acknowledge support from Leipzig University for Open Access Publishing.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


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