Epistemic engulfment by proptech and finance in Canadian housing

This article introduces the concept of epistemic engulfment to describe the growing dominance of financial and technological actors in the production and control of housing knowledge in Canada. Through an analysis of property technology (proptech) and financialization in rental housing, I demonstrate how the accumulation, privatization, and gatekeeping of housing data by private actors erode tenants’ capacity to understand, access, or contest knowledge about their housing conditions. I examine how data-intensive practices by landlords and proptech undermine the epistemic practices of tenants and housing groups. Via three case studies—revenue management software, short-term rentals in Quebec, and ownership data privatization in Ontario—I illustrate how these dynamics contribute to a dual process of extraction and exclusion. The paper argues for a reconceptualization of housing knowledge politics that legitimizes counter-knowledge practices and democratizes access to housing information. This research contributes to critical housing studies by foregrounding the political economy of knowledge production in the context of the digitized financialization of housing.