CHAMP · Crisis, Housing and Austerity: the emergence of a new Moral Politics?

CHAMP is a proposed training partnership between Dr Adam Standring, Professor Jonathan Davies and the Centre for Urban Research on Austerity (CURA) at De Montfort University (DMU), Leicester, UK. The rise of political values contrary to the aims of the European project is one of the great challenges of our time. The proposed Fellowship would be the first of its kind in examining the way morals construct and mediate political demands, from where moral critiques emanate and how they are legitimized. By exploring the moral foundations of critique, the Fellowship will develop novel perspectives on how European goals of social inclusion and sustainable societies can be achieved. Building on Dr Standring's work on anti- politics and Professor Davies' research on urban austerity, this project constructs an innovative interdisciplinary analytical framework. This framework is applied to a specific policy area especially suited to a moral critique - housing - in three countries producing different responses to austerity - the UK, Ireland and Portugal. As urban areas become sites of political contestation, fundamental in the implementation and resistance to austerity, broader political issues such as intergenerational justice, redistribution, solidarity, citizenship and community resilience are distilled into concrete conflicts. In delivering this project, the Fellow will benefit from De Montfort University's outstanding research training programme, and the field leading expertise of Professor Jonathan Davies and the CURA team. The project is closely aligned with the DMU strategic priority for researching 21st century urban living. It complements UN Sustainable Development goals and contributes to meeting EU Societal Challenges, especially """"Europe in a changing world: inclusive, innovative and reflective societies"""". If successful, the Fellow will emerge from the programme as a fully independent scholar of international standing and as a credit to the MSCF programme.""