Lucas Poy

Our book Rent Strikes has been downloaded more than a thousand times in only one week!
@uclpress.bsky.social @iisg-amsterdam.bsky.social @hannesrolf.bsky.social

Our book Rent Strikes has been downloaded more than a thousand times in only one week!
@uclpress.bsky.social @iisg-amsterdam.bsky.social @hannesrolf.bsky.social

📢 NEW BOOK ALERT!

The housing crisis is global, but so is the resistance.

A thread to introduce “Rent Strikes”, edited together with @hannesrolf.bsky.social, and published open access by @uclpress.bsky.social and @iisg-amsterdam.bsky.social

uclpress.co.uk/book/rent-st...

🧵(1/10)

Nieuw boek van o.a. IISG-fellow @lucaspoy.bsky.social over huurdersverzet tegen inhalige huisbazen. Open access, dus gratis te downloaden en te lezen!

no sé dónde te subiste pero suele ir tan lento que podés dormir un buen rato hasta Núñez.

Rent Strikes Since the nineteenth century, working-class families have predominantly relied on tenements for housing, with rents often consuming a large portion of their household budgets. There is a long and cont...

Read the history of how ordinary people fought back. Rent Strikes is available to download free from UCL Press: uclpress.co.uk/book/rent-st...

🧵(10/10)

In the Global South, housing struggles often take different forms. In the favelas of Brazil, organized workers fought against exploitative “rent seekers”. Their struggle reveals how informal rental markets generate their own forms of intense exploitation.

🧵(9/10)

One of the greatest catalyst for tenant revolt worldwide? Inflation.
It consistently acted as the “spark” that ignited collective tenant actions across borders.

🧵(8/10)

What were tenants fighting for? Historically, demands consistently revolve around: 1) Lower rents; 2) Renovations and maintenance; and 3) Fighting evictions. Tactics include the refusal to pay rent, withholding a portion of it, or channeling unpaid rent towards repairs.

🧵(7/10)

Understanding women's role requires different sources. The book employs autobiographical narratives to capture their specific experiences of managing household reproduction amidst activism.

🧵(6/10)

Tenant action was fundamentally connected to global politics. In Panama, rent strikes were interwoven with anti-imperialist struggles challenging U.S. domination. In France in the 1970s, immigrant rent strikes drew on the experience of Algerian national liberation.

🧵(5/10)

Another central argument is that women have consistently played a pivotal role in tenant activism, linking struggles over rent to the daily reproduction of the labour force. The role of women is analysed in case studies in New York, Rome, Buenos Aires and others.

🧵(4/10)

The volume shows how the language of resistance often centers on E.P. Thompson's concept of “moral economy”. Tenants define certain rental practices as unfair and reject the domination of market laws. They denounce landlords as “profiteers”, “sharks”, or “vultures”

🧵(3/10)

The core conflict analyzed in the book is the enduring contradiction in capitalist urban development: housing as a basic human need (use-value) versus housing as a source of profit and capital accumulation (commodity/exchange-value)

🧵(2/10)

📢 NEW BOOK ALERT!

The housing crisis is global, but so is the resistance.

A thread to introduce “Rent Strikes”, edited together with @hannesrolf.bsky.social, and published open access by @uclpress.bsky.social and @iisg-amsterdam.bsky.social

uclpress.co.uk/book/rent-st...

🧵(1/10)

gracias!

As tenants worldwide confront neoliberal policies and housing financialization, the struggles of today can learn important lessons from a past full of hope, anger, victories, and defeats.

Hope you download it, read it, and spread the word!

The book explores the long transnational history of tenant struggles for housing rights.

It includes case studies from the early 20th century to today in the United States, Panama, Brazil, Argentina, Sweden, Spain, Greece, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.

Rent Strikes Since the nineteenth century, working-class families have predominantly relied on tenements for housing, with rents often consuming a large portion of their household budgets. There is a long and cont...

Just published!

Rent Strikes: A history of collective tenant actions across the world, the book I edited with @hannesrolf.bsky.social, is out now from @uclpress.bsky.social

It's OPEN ACCESS, part of the "Work Around the World" series by @iisg-amsterdam.bsky.social

uclpress.co.uk/book/rent-st...

I am delighted to finally see this volume that I, @lucaspoy.bsky.social , and fourteen other authors have been working on for a few years (without any external funding, it should be added), as a printed book. This is likely the first international anthology on the history of tenant organising.

Macrostatistieken kunnen er op papier mooi uitzien, maar achter de “discipline” van Milei zit een enorme sociale kost. Minder productie, minder banen, meer armoede.

Een rapport van El Economista spreekt zelfs van 16.322 bedrijven gesloten in 18 maanden – gemiddeld 28 per dag – en 236.000 banen verdwenen. Ironisch dat juist de VVD, altijd bezorgd om “werken moet lonen” en “ondernemers steunen”, dit als voorbeeld ziet.

Volgens Infobae (20/10/2025) verdwenen alleen al in de provincie Buenos Aires 4.479 bedrijven en 88.460 formele banen sinds Milei aantrad. Vooral bouw en industrie kregen zware klappen: –18,7 % en –25.000 jobs per sector

Opmerkelijk dat de VVD Argentinië als voorbeeld neemt. Het “kettingzaag”-beleid van Milei leidde tot massale sluitingen van bedrijven, verlies van banen en dalende koopkracht. Niet echt wat je noemt een economie waar “werken loont”. (draadje🧵)

Rent Strikes Since the nineteenth century, working-class families have predominantly relied on tenements for housing, with rents often consuming a large portion of their household budgets. There is a long and cont...

Did you ever wonder anything about the history of tenant organising and rent strikes? This volume, edited by me and @lucaspoy.bsky.social , might have some answers. Freshly published today and available with open access.

uclpress.co.uk/book/rent-st...

Detail from a historic portrait photo of Ferri

7/9 Following this, @lucaspoy.bsky.social (@vuamsterdam.bsky.social) investigates "The Influence of Enrico Ferri in Late-Nineteenth Century Argentine Socialism" www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The last days of the take-home essay as we knew it “Not to laugh, not to weep, but to understand”.

Same question, and some (very tentative) answers: lucaspoy.substack.com/p/the-last-d...

Looking forward to presenting my work at @weatherheadcenter.bsky.social in Harvard next spring!

wigh.wcfia.harvard.edu/event/global...

A thoughtful essay worth your time. I’ve been wrestling with the same questions and have much still to learn.

yes, exactly. Of course this has the problem of proportions, not always is possible to have such a ratio teacher:students, but I think there are alternatives that work. For instance convert a 10-15 people class into a "workshop" in which students "defend" their work in a roundtable format.