Legal Knowledges and Surveillance in the Condo World
| Author | Stefan R Treffers,Randy K Lippert |
| Published date | 01 August 2016 |
| Date | 01 August 2016 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663915627492 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Legal Knowledges and
Surveillance in the
Condo World
Randy K Lippert and Stefan R Treffers
University of Windsor, Canada
Abstract
This article explores legal knowledges and surveillance in residential condominiums, a
form of property ownership and collective governing arrangement that is proliferating
globally. Drawing from extensive empirical qualitative study of this realm in Toronto,
Canada and New York, USA, including interviews with condo board members, owners
and industry representatives, we map various legal knowledges and forms of surveillance
and how these relate to condo governance and condo life. We demonstrate how sur-
veillance is enabled by various legal knowledges flowing into the condo world, including
those stemming from an evolving condo statute in the form of ‘counter-law’, but also
from civil law, municipal law and criminal law. We show these legal knowledges have
spawned video surveillance, key fobs, human surveillance, reserve fund studies, financial
audits and safety inspections that together form a governing assemblage of private
actors. This surveillance is largely focused on board and owners’ practices in relation to
financial viability and property value, which has accompanied the condo becoming
foremost an investment rather than a residential community. Much relevant legal
knowledge and surveillance is increasingly commodified rather than developed or pro-
vided by the community, thus underscoring that the condo is an ever expanding conduit
for the flow of such commodities. The article concludes with a discussion of several
implications of this analysis, including the notion that the condo world may be experi-
encing a spiral of more and more law and surveillance.
Keywords
Condominiums, governance, juridification, legal knowledge, surveillance
Corresponding author:
Randy K Lippert, Department of Sociology and Criminology, University of Windsor, 401 Sunset Avenue,
Windsor, Canada N9B 3P4.
Email: lippert@uwindsor.ca
Social & Legal Studies
2016, Vol. 25(4) 419–440
ªThe Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permission:
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DOI: 10.1177/0964663915627492
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Introduction
Much recent scholarship has contemplated the complex relationship between law and
state surveillance of populations (Lippert, 2015). This article explores forms of law and
surveillance in a neglected but fast-expanding private realm: residential condominiums
(also termed ‘strata’ or ‘commonhold’
1
; hereinafter ‘condo’) instead. In doing so, we
situate the condo case alongside other work on law and surveillance in various housing
and property contexts. This includes research about the monitoring and regulation of
social housing occupants (Cowan and McDermont, 2006), homeless persons in accom-
modated housing (Fopp, 2002), tenants in the private rented sector (Lister, 2005), res-
idents of gated communities (Blandy and Lister, 2005), as well as proliferation of ‘social
landlords’ who, equipped with powerful regulatory powers, govern the spaces of private
residencesand surrounding communities(Flint and Pawson, 2009).Together this work has
begun to show the influential role of lawand surveillance in various housing forms. How-
ever, as wedemonstrate subsequently,condo arrangements entaila distinctive proliferation
of law and surveillance not evident in subsidized, solely rental or individually owned
housing. Drawing from empirical qualitative study of this realm in the Greater Toronto
Area (GTA) and New York City, including interviews with condo board members, unit
owners and industry representatives, in what follows we map relevant legal knowledges,
forms of surveillance, and how the tworelate in the expanding private condo world.
We first describe the condo world as entailing a unique form of ownership and collec-
tive governingarrangement in which dilemmas andanxieties surface and legal knowledge
and surveillanc ef low. Next, we elaborate our con ceptual approach and methods a nd define
key terms. We then proceed to demonstrate how surveillance is enabled by various legal
knowledges flowing into the condo world, including those stemming from an evolving
condo statute in the form of ‘counter-law’, but also from civil law, municipal law and
criminal law. Some of these converge with one another resembling what Valverde (2009:
139) has referred to as ‘interlegality’. We show these legal knowledges have spawned
video surveillance, key fobs,human surveillance, reservefund studies, financial auditsand
safety inspections that together form an assemblage. This surveillance is found to be
largely focused on board and owners’ practices in relation to financial viability and
property value, which has accompanied the condo becoming foremost an investment,
consistent with notions of financialization (see Lippert and Steckle, 2016; Martin,
2002), rather than a community. Where possible, we provide a sense of how these forms
of legal knowledgeand surveillance are understoodor invoked by condo residents or board
members. Finally, we argue that much legal knowledge and surveillance entering the
condo world andforming an assemblage is commodified, that is, marketed and purchased,
rather than developed or provided internally in the community or arriving through other
means. This underscores that the condo represents an ever expanding conduit for the flow
of commodified services. We conclude by discussing several implications of our analysis.
The Condo World
The condo property relationship was introduced in North American statutes in the 1960s
but has been in place in continental Europe and Latin America from the early 20th
420 Social & Legal Studies 25(4)
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