2025 - 2029 | FWO – Postdoctoral Fellowship
The twenty-first century is the century of displacement. An unprecedented 110 million people are displaced worldwide, 40 million of them internationally. Most seek asylum in urban areas. However, in cities, internationally displaced migrants are confronted with unaffordable housing markets and growing levels of homelessness. In this project, I analyze the extent to which international migrants’ experiences of displacement are continued and multiplied in cities of arrival, and the ways international processes and experiences of displacement intersect and overlap with those of unhoused populations. Applying comparative and qualitative social research, I first study the housing trajectories of internationally displaced and unhoused populations. This includes their strategies, geographies, and determinants relevant for (not) finding housing and “making” home. Second, I examine the housing market structures and policies for displaced populations, including their rationale, implementation, and spatial arrangements. Conceptualizing cities as sites that both receive displaced populations, and that produce displacement, my research furthers our understanding of this “displacement urbanism.” This encompasses the creation of systematic knowledge about the way displacement shapes urban processes and its relationship to global-urban housing regimes and governance, as well as the wider structures of racial exclusion and marginalization in cities.
