Active Citizenship and Local Governance in the Case of Cressingham Gardens: Agonism or Antagonism?

ABSTRACT

This paper utilizes the concepts of agonism and antagonism to further the existing analysis of active citizenship within local governance. At present, this relationship is taking place as housing stock increasingly becomes the subject of financialization. Embedded in this context, and with a particular focus on active citizenship’s manifestation in estate redevelopment and how it moulds the interactions between citizen and state, I discuss how differing conceptions of the nature of active citizenship serve to create distrust and hostility throughout the redevelopment process, using the case study of the Cressingham Gardens estate in the London borough of Lambeth. Through conducting extensive qualitative research with state actors and estate residents, this study illustrates the mechanisms by which active citizenship that falls outside the remit deemed acceptable by the state is challenged on a live, contested site.

KEYWORDS:

• Active citizenship
• redevelopment
• estate regeneration
• financialisation
• austerity
• Lambeth Council

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr. Emma Jackson and Dr. Joe Penny for their comments throughout the process of researching and drafting this article; and Jack Ford, Sophie Porter and Emily Ballard for their invaluable thoughts, time and company while I was engaged in writing. Thank you above all to the Cressingham residents and campaigners who took time to speak to me for the project, and to all those still campaigning for safe, affordable and fair housing provision in London and beyond. Inaccuracies are the author’s responsiblity alone.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).