Informal housing arrangements
Beyond support or exploitation
Inequality and reciprocity in informal housing arrangements between newcomers and their migrant hosts
Background
In cities facing housing shortages, vulnerable newcomers almost always live with family or friends upon arrival
Social networks are often seen as a source of support (social capital) that facilitates migration and settlement, but newcomers can also be exploited by established migrants and relatives
Do newcomers experience either altruistic support or selfish exploitation from their hosts?
Methods
Interviews with Colombian newcomers in the city of Rotterdam (The Netherlands)
How do they experience being hosted by a friend, a brother or a stranger?
What kind of support do they receive and how do they reciprocate?
How do frames such as kinship or friendship shape the exchange and its meanings?
Inequality and reciprocity
No one is accommodated for free, in the sense that hospitality always costs the guest something
The directionality of support cannot be taken for granted: ‘Who supports whom’ is an open question and is sometimes the subject of disagreement between hosts and guests
The fundamental asymmetry between host and guest is compounded by inequalities of gender, legal status, and economic and cultural resources
The vocabulary of help and family solidarity used by guests to describe their arrangement should be viewed as relational work, attributing specific qualities to the relationship with the host.
Rather than opposite ends of a spectrum, exploitation emerges from support, from the ambiguity and implicit obligations that govern hospitality