Housing Precarization and the Reshuffling of Worthiness, Blame, and Vulnerability During the Covid-19 Pandemic

This chapter explores the degradation of housing conditions in Greece within the framework of precarization politics, and the discourses utilized to justify these developments. Precarization, that is, the continual (re)distribution of vulnerability and insecurity to keep the population governable, has been the defining mode of governance in Greece since the onset of austerity restructuring. The government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic represents a continuation and intensification of precarization politics. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, owing to ongoing processes of housing commodification and financialization, different social groups, including overindebted homeowners and refugees/asylum seekers, have experienced increasing housing precarity. Through the dissemination of moral discourses, the mass media have played a role in redistributing worthiness, blame, and vulnerability among different groups and shaping public attitudes towards them. Applying discourse theoretical analysis on government and media texts, the chapter examines the underlying logics and norms that structure precarizsation practices and identifies the moral justifications accompanying policy shifts regarding housing.