Subaltern housing policies:Accommodating migrant workers in wealthy Geneva

In the wealthy and orderly city of Geneva, Switzerland, accommodation centres built in haste between the 1950s and the 1980s to house seasonal guestworkers from southern Europe are still standing and still inhabited. Today’s residents are precarious workers, undocumented or with temporary permits as well as asylum seekers. While the seasonal status disappeared in the early 2000s, the demand for low-skilled, flexible labour did not. Analysing the historical trajectories of specific buildings helps us to answer the question of who replaced the seasonal workers, not only in the labour and the housing markets, but also in the symbolic spectrum of legitimacy. This article introduces the notion of ‘Subaltern Housing Policies’ to account for the public action that leads to the production and subsequent use of forms of housing characterised by standards of comfort and security far below those of the rental and social housing stock, but considered ‘good enough’ for their occupants. We argue that ‘subaltern’ relates not only to housing conditions, but also to the policies themselves, and last but not least to the people who are subjected to them. This notion allows us to trace a link between the production of substandard forms of housing and the production of categories of people who are kept on the margins of full citizenship.</p

Bern: Integration Guidelines

In the second half of the 1990s, due to growing heterogeneity and fragmentation of the social and urban structure and the arrival of new lifestyles (of nationals and migrants), Swiss cities started taking charge of the challenges of migrant integration. In order to overcome an ageing foreigners law and diverse understanding of concepts and procedures, the city of Bern decided to elaborate a concept of guidelines and recommendations regarding integration of migrant populations. A large consultation resulted in a widely publicised document compiling recommendations addressing everyone, and particularly institutional actors. The document was meant to inform the population about the position and aims of the city council regarding integration. This way of discussing, negotiating and writing down guidelines supports participation and acceptance through involvement of stakeholders and acknowledges the limits of traditional welfare governance operating by enforceable rules in a field like integratio

Acquaintances or Familiar Strangers?:How Similarity and Spatial Proximity Shape Neighbour Relations within Residential Buildings

While scholars have long established that city dwellers choose with whom to develop relationships on the basis of social proximity, spatial proximity remains the basis for neighbour relations involving greetings, social conversation, and the exchange of services. Few studies have systematically compared the respective roles of spatial and social proximity in neighbour relations. In this paper, we investigate these two factors through statistical analysis of four social network datasets representing relationships within four rented apartment buildings in Geneva, Switzerland. Using a measure of distance that takes into account how the layout and materiality of buildings shape relationships through accessibility, visibility and audibility, we compare the effects of spatial proximity with the effects of individual determinants and similarity. Our study also breaks new ground by comparing weak ties–between people who interact regularly–and “invisible ties”, or ties to familiar strangers. Our study confirms that spatial proximity increases the likelihood of weak ties and questions the underlying mechanisms. It also shows that in addition to sociability, familiarity and anonymity are constitutive dimensions of neighbouring, even at the scale of buildings.</p

Between Hospitality and Inhospitality: The Janus-Faced 'Arrival Infrastructure'

Although ‘arrival infrastructure’ is central to the experience of migrants arriving in a new city, is it sufficient to form a ‘hospitable milieu’? Our article compares newcomers’ experiences with ‘arrival infrastructure’ in two European cities: Brussels and Geneva. Based on ethnographic research with 49 migrants who arrived a few months earlier, we show that arrival infrastructure is Janus-faced. On one hand, it welcomes newcomers and contributes to making the city hospitable. On the other hand, it rejects, deceives and disappoints them, forcing them to remain mobile—to go back home, go further afield, or just move around the city—in order to satisfy their needs and compose what we will call a ‘hospitable milieu.’ The arrival infrastructure’s inhospitality is fourfold: linked firstly to its limitations and shortcomings, secondly to the trials or tests newcomers have to overcome in order to benefit from the infrastructure, thirdly to the necessary forms of closure needed to protect those who have just arrived and fourthly to those organising and managing the infrastructure, with divergent conceptions of hospitality. By using the notion of milieu and by embedding infrastructure into the broader question of hospitality, we open up an empirical exploration of its ambiguous role in the uncertain trajectories of newcomers

Social Workers and Irregular Migrants in the Assistance Circuit: Making Sense of Paradoxical Inclusion

Despite restrictive policy frameworks, cities sometimes provide support to irregular migrants. Scholars have analysed these forms of inclusion, focusing on policies and tensions between inclusionary approaches by local or urban actors and exclusionary approaches by national or supranational authorities. This article seeks to shift the focus to the street level, examining how support is delivered, how it is experienced by different categories of irregular migrants, and how frontline social workers make sense of their work and foster “paradoxical inclusion.” To this end, the article first analyses the experiences of young North African irregular migrants in Geneva, Switzerland. Based on ethnographic research, we describe their everyday life in the “assistance circuit,” which forces them to follow a daily routine determined by the services offered at fixed times in different places. Over time, the young men develop a sense of entrapment and alienation, as well as escape strategies. Secondly, by examining the perspective of social workers, we show that the constraints associated with the assistance circuit reflect a social work paradigm that aims to keep people on the move, limit dependency and promote autonomy. This paradigm coexists with another, conflicting one, which can be described as palliative, but which also seems paradoxical to the irregular migrants who aspire to full participation in social and economic life. Overall, our study suggests an alternative interpretation of the limitations and paradoxes surrounding irregular migrants’ inclusion that complements policy‐oriented approaches

Faire du sur-place sans jamais pouvoir prendre place : l’interminable arrivée de jeunes maghrébins sans-papiers à Genève

Cet article analyse l’expérience de jeunes maghrébins nouvellement arrivés à Genève. Précarisés par leur parcours d’errance, sans statut légal, ils trouvent à Genève une infrastructure d’accueil qui leur permet de se nourrir et de dormir au chaud. Cependant, cette hospitalité a un coût : elle leur demande de suivre un parcours quotidien déterminé et rythmé par les services délivrés à heures fixes dans différents lieux d’accueil. Ce mode de vie combine mobilité et immobilité, donnant aux nouveaux arrivants l’impression de faire du surplace. Ceux-ci s’aménagent alors des échappatoires, notamment dans des conduites délictuelles, mais trouvent rarement d’autre issue que de reprendre la route. Nous analyserons ici les caractéristiques de cette hospitalité particulière à travers quatre épreuves qu’ils rencontrent : se familiariser, habiter, gagner sa vie et se projeter. Ce qui rend ces épreuves souvent insurmontables tient tant dans l’orientation et l’organisation de l’infrastructure d’accueil que dans la situation spécifique de ce groupe de jeunes sans-papiers.This article focuses on the experience of young North Africans newcomers in Geneva. Precarised by their wandering and lacking legal status, they find in Geneva a reception infrastructure that allows them to eat and sleep in warm place. However, this hospitality comes at a price: they are forced to follow a set daily routine, determined by the services provided at set times in different reception centres. This way of life combines mobility and immobility, giving the newcomers the impression of being stuck in motion. They then develop escape strategies, notably criminal behaviour, but rarely find any other way out than to go back on the road. Here we analyse the characteristics of this particular hospitality through four trials that they encounter: getting familiar, dwelling, earning a living, and making plans. What makes these trials often insurmountable is both the orientation and organisation of the reception infrastructure and the specific situation of this group of young undocumented migrants.Este artículo analiza la experiencia de varios jóvenes norteafricanos recientemente llegados a Ginebra. En precariedad debido a su trayectoria errante y a la falta de estatus legal, encuentran en Ginebra una infraestructura de acogida que les permite comer y dormir abrigados. Sin embargo, esta hospitalidad tiene un coste: les obliga a seguir una rutina diaria establecida y marcada por los servicios ofrecidos a la misma hora en distintos centros de acogida. Este modo de vida combina la movilidad y la inmovilidad, les da la impresión de quedarse atascados. Descubren formas de salir, sobre todo a través de comportamientos delictivos, pero rara vez encuentran otra salida que retomar el camino. A continuación, analizaremos las características de esta particular hospitalidad a través de cuatro situaciones que se les presentan: relacionarse, vivir, ganarse la vida y hacer planes. Analizaremos las características de esta particular hospitalidad a través de cuatro situaciones que se les presentan: familiarizarse, habitar, ganarse la vida y planificar. El hecho de que estas pruebas sean a menudo insuperables radica tanto en la orientación y la organización de las infraestructuras de acogida como en la situación específica de este grupo de jóvenes indocumentados

La Fête des voisins: un rituel conjuratoire ?

Dans un contexte d’accroissement des mobilités, de montée de l’individualisme et de développement des réseaux sociaux numériques, les relations de voisinage semblent appartenir au passé. Comment comprendre alors que la Fête des voisins rassemble chaque année plus de monde ? À partir d’une enquête menée à Genève, Maxime Felder livre un éclairage sur le sens et le rôle de ce rituel

Who are the strangers?

In the first sentence of her book,The lonely city, British writer Olivia Laing (2016, p 3) asks the reader to imagine him- or herself standing at the window at night, when dark and illuminated windows compose the urban landscape. ‘Inside’, she writes, ‘strangers swim to and fro, attending to the business of their private hours. You can see them, but you can’t reach them, and so this commonplace urban phenomenon, available in any city of the world on any night, conveys to even the most social a tremor of loneliness, its uneasy combination of separation and exposur