The notion of moral economy has been posited as a useful tool to approach everyday understandings of economic life and, more precisely, to illuminate popular reactions in the face of historical changes affecting political economies, namely in the sense of market liberalization and commoditization processes. After its initial conceptualisation by historian E.P. Thompson and political scientist and anthropologist James C. Scott to address peasant rebellions and resistances, the use of the moral economy notion has been extended to more variegated situations and has been applied to other –mostly subaltern– social groups, as well as to the distribution of a variety of subsistence means and goods.
In this paper, attention will be paid to the validity of the moral economy notion to address situations of contention around housing. In contemporary economies, housing emerges as a significant case study given its diverging understandings either as a basic good –providing people with a shelter and a home– or as a commodity –giving rise to housing markets from where much profit can be extracted. More recently, this tension has been further complicated by financialization processes aimed at turning housing into an asset with financial value. Such tension finds its particular expressions in different national contexts, where different historical trajectories and housing systems are at the background of conflicting claims over the benefits provided by the materiality of dwellings, by housing policies, and by real estate and financial markets. The practices and discourses around these issues are often informed by moral values that are in turn used to legitimize either the continuity of the status quo, or its contestation by those feeling unfairly treated and dispossessed. After collecting and systematizing the existing scholarship on the moral economies of housing, a future research agenda will be proposed to address housing-related issues in the coming years.