Constituting and defending ‘everyday’ rentiers: parliamentary and print media constructions of ‘Mom-and-Pop’ landlords in Ireland

While international institutional/corporate landlords are common targets for negative political and popular attention, this article employs a Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA) of Irish print-media and parliamentary discourse to interrogate ostensibly benign constructions of ‘Mom-and-Pop landlords’. Recognising the productive power of discourse, we show how the ‘Mom-and-Pop’ designator is strategically deployed in media and political discourses to constitute and defend an everyday, victim (landlord-)category deserving of public sympathy, protection and emulation. Our FDA problematizes how such deployments: downplay small-scale or ‘everyday’ rentiers’ profit-seeking; obscure asymmetrical landlord/tenant relationships; obviate potential regulation of the rental market; and legitimise unverified landlord-centric claims-making. Appeals to, for and by putative ‘Moms-and-Pops’ help sustain a policy climate favourable to landlords’ investments, prioritizing their rights to property portfolios over tenants’ rights to homes. In Ireland’s print-media and parliamentary discourses, challenges to ‘Mom-and-Pop landlord’ constructions are rare, predominantly emanating from a small number of letter writers to the media, members of left-wing political parties, and housing activists.