Housing and temporary legality : The evictability and settlement of refugees in Swedish municipalities

• This article explores four Swedish municipalities which have reacted differently to legislation aiming to regulate a 'fair and equal' distribution of refugees: from barefaced rejection to the advocacy of refugee settlement as an investment in future citizens. Interviews with people who work with settlement show that housing is made central in different municipal strategies and creates an unequal landscape of evictability for refugees depending on where they are placed. Temporary and conditional residence permits for refugees, which have been made standard in this time of temporary legality, are simultaneously dependent on settlement strategies in municipalities: housing and access to jobs determine whether you can stay or stay with your family. This deportability of refugees is what is at stake. Yet access to housing is continuously treated as a mundane 'service': both in the categorical denial of housing and in the evaluation of what can qualify refugees to deserve settlement.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Internationell migration och etniska relationer (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- International Migration and Ethnic Relations (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Socialt arbete (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Social Work (hsv//eng)

Keyword

deportability

evictability

housing

refugee settlement policy

temporary legality

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)