Migrant housing struggle and racial discrimination

The case of postsocialist Leipzig and Riga

Harriet Allsopp, Giovanna Astolfo, Annegret Haase, Karlis Laksevics, Anika Schmidt, Bahanur Nasya and Ayesha Khalil

Published in Issue 6.2 // The Long Read

Keywords: migration, housing struggle, discrimination, equality, racism

Abstract:

The civic mobilisation welcoming Ukrainian refugees after Russia’s invasion in February 2022 has shown how housing is a social infrastructure based on care and solidarity. But it has also shown its discriminatory face. By drawing on our recent collaborative research in Leipzig and Riga and conceptual reflections from previous research, this paper elaborates on how practices of welcoming and housing refugees intertwine with state racism and everyday discrimination. It is grounded in two intersecting lines of inquiry. The first one focuses on migrant housing struggles in the context of increased financialisation, privatisation and austerity urbanism. The second expands on the intersection of race and discrimination with housing, asking how race and racial discrimination intersect and affect migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers’ access to and experiences with housing. The underlying argument is that while housing is the site where this type of discrimination becomes spatialised and visible (and thus can be challenged), there is still a missing discourse around discrimination in migration and housing policy.

doi.org/10.54825/CMKM2131

Harriet Allsopp, PhD in IR, Politics and Middle Eastern Studies. Research Associate on the AHRC-funded project Reframing Infrastructures of Arrival, DPU, UCL, London. Her research focuses on global and local integration and exclusion mechanisms, migration and displacement and on the intersectionality of these with racial discrimination and structural inequalities.

Giovanna Astolfo, Associate Professor, DPU, London. Her research focuses on non-conventional urbanisms, continuous displacement and migration, spatial violence and housing justice. Pi on AHRC-funded project Reframe (2024-27). Co-I on ESRC-funded project House-In (2020-22).

Bahanur Nasya is an architect, researcher and film producer. She studied in Vienna and Barcelona where she has specialized in sustainable architecture, just and fair scenarios, and future proof development concepts. She supports communities in Europe to work collectively, to serve everyone and not just selected few.

Kārlis Lakševics is a researcher at the University of Latvia. His research focuses on housing justice, social service design and urban political ecology with a special focus on homelessness, social marginalization and the energy transition.

Annegret Haase is urban sociologist and works at Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ in Leipzig, Germany, at the Dept. of Urban and Environmental Sociology. Her main research interests include urban transformation and resilience, urban migration, diversity and governance, socio-spatial inequities and justice in cities as well as participation and transdisciplibary research.

Anika Schmidt has been working in various research projects on sustainable urban development, urban resilience, migration and housing at the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research Leipzig. She is a social geographer as well as a trained mediator. Her research activities have a special focus on the analysis of conflicts of social-ecological transformation and new forms of transdisciplinary cooperation.

Ayesha Khalil is an Urban Development Practitioner and Analyst with a focus on Inclusive Development, Migration and Sustainable Neighbourhoods. Worked for World Bank and United Nations (UN). Currently works at Westminster Council London. Researcher for the HOUSE-In project, DPU London.

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Topics: equalityGermanyLatviamigrantracism