Discursive construction of the perception of gender identity: The case of tenants and owners in re-privatization/property restitution in Warsaw

Abstract

The article examines how the perception of gender identities of tenants and owners was constructed in normalizing discourses regarding re-privatization/property restitution in Warsaw in 2004-2016. As a theoretical approach, it applies the feminist post-structuralist perspective developed by Sophie Watson (2000a). The data were collected with discourse analysis, as proposed by Judith Baxter (2008a). The article identifies two discourses pertaining to re-privatization/property restitution in Warsaw: 1) property restitution discourse, under which returning property to former owners (or their heirs) is presented as a moral imperative; and 2) expropriation of tenants discourse, focusing on abuse, fraud and human misfortune stemming from the passage of municipal housing stock to the descendants of former owners. In both discourses, tenants were ascribed a feminine identity, and owners a masculine one (G. Hofstede, G.J. Hofstede, 2007). That affected the tenants' and owners' positions in the housing policy process.

Keywords

• municipal housing
• social actors
• re-privatization/property restitution
• tenants
• owners