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`Better the Devil You Know': Submerged Consciousness and Tenant Participation in Housing Stock Transfers

2009; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 46; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/0042098008099360

1360-063X

John McCormack,

Political Economy and Marxism

To what extent does the Freirean concept of submerged consciousness contribute towards understanding of tenant participation in housing stock transfers? This paper describes the policy and process of housing stock transfer, noting both its contested nature and the role of tenants in the process. It explores Freire's concept of submerged consciousness, relating it to a cliché common amongst tenants experiencing stock transfer—`better the devil you know'—before applying a Freirean analytical framework to an ethnographic study of a housing stock transfer. The paper concludes that Freire does offer a valuable analytical framework in respect of tenant participation in housing stock transfers, before offering some suggestions for further, related research.