Metropolitics

The Emergence of Transnational Queer Organizing Across a Hardening US–Canada Border

Elizabeth Hessek — 2025-09-30T05:00:00Z

LGTBQ+ refugees in the United States not only face the violence of the nation's immigration policy but are also constrained by international agreements that limit Canada's ability to offer refugee status to them. Elizabeth Hessek describes how these challenges have created opportunities for transnational networks to support queer refugees wherever they may be.
As migration control has surfaced as a barometer of national sovereignty in public debate, recent migration scholarship has rejected

- From the Field / LGBTQ+, queer, community organizing, refugees, United States, Canada, North America, borders, immigration, immigration policy, networks

Securing Shelter While Facing Eviction: The Case of Syrian Migrants in Lebanon

Dima El Khouri — 2022-12-16T06:00:00Z

Dima El Khouri documents the politics of securing housing for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. She shows the complex web of negotiations that take place between refugees, local Lebanese city dwellers, local authorities, and international NGOs.
Between the beginning of the conflict in Syria in 2011 and 2014, the Lebanese government failed to react to the arrival of Syrians fleeing conflict in their country. By 2015, approximately 1.5 million Syrian refugees resided in Lebanon, in addition to almost

- From the Field / Syria, Lebanon, refugees, migrants, migration, shelter, housing, evictions

Migrants' Occupation of Lycée Jean Quarré: The Refugee Cause and the Cause of a Neighborhood

Isabelle Coutant & translated by Oliver Waine — 2018-11-16T06:00:00Z

The flows of migrants seeking refuge in Europe since the summer of 2015 have led to temporary settlements—legal or otherwise—in various urban locations. What is the impact of their presence on individual neighborhoods and relations with local communities? A study by Isabelle Coutant on the occupation of a disused high school in northeastern Paris sheds light on these impacts and the associated expressions of solidarity, engagement and tension that emerge.
In the summer of 2015, the

- Essays / France, immigration, refugees, public space, working-class neighborhoods, collective action, Paris, proximity, neighborhood, migration, sociabilities, RESF, hospitality, politics, school, migrants, engagement, occupation, local action, asylum

Immigrant Men and Voluntary Work in a Swiss City

Agnès Aubry — 2018-05-15T05:00:00Z

Across Europe, refugees and immigrants find themselves in uncertain civil and legal territory; precariousness infuses every aspect of their daily existence. In this paper, Agnes Aubry elucidates the multiple meanings of immigrants' voluntary work in a soup kitchen, demonstrating the legal, moral, and sociological connections between labor and citizenship.
Saturday evening, in a warehouse near the heart of a city in Switzerland.
It's 8 p.m. at the soup kitchen. Abdel, myself and 13 other

- From the Field / immigration, refugees, migration, Switzerland, citizenship, precarity, migrants, voluntary work, volunteering, civic sector

Dwelling—Living—Waiting: Transformations of a Refugee Reception Camp in Germany

Nina Riewe — 2017-11-21T06:00:00Z

In wealthy German cities, which have received tens of thousands of refugees from the Middle East and Northern Africa in recent years, officials have scrambled to provide adequate physical accommodation. In this paper, Nina Riewe explores refugees' negotiation of space in an initial reception camp in Hamburg. Considered under law to be “dwelling” but not actually “living” there, they continually struggle to maintain privacy, sociability, and physical and psychological comfort in a place

- From the Field / camps, refugees, Germany, migration, space, migrants, refugee camps, state of exception, zones of exception, Agamben, Hamburg, asylum

The Crisis of Geographical Imagination in Turkey

Luka Lucić — 2016-06-21T05:00:00Z

Ethnic, nationalistic and social tensions are at an all-time high in Turkey, exacerbated by the re‑emergence of the “Kurdish problem” and the influx of Syrian refugees fleeing the war. Minorities are persecuted and academics denouncing exactions are targeted by the government. Luka Lucić compares this situation to the collapse of Yugoslavia and warns of possible dire times to come.
There was an old joke often told in Sarajevo during the early days of the siege (1992‑1995). All across former

- Essays / refugees, segregation, Turkey, crisis, minorities, ethnonationalism, Syria, former Yugoslavia, Kurdistan, persecution, ideology

Haiti after the earthquake: camps, shanty towns and housing shortages

Gerry L'Étang & translated by Oliver Waine — 2012-05-02T09:14:17Z

In Haiti, in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, public squares became the sites of makeshift camps to provide shelter to victims made homeless by the disaster. Since then, their status has changed to become places of hope of justice in the face of the inequalities of a nationwide housing shortage. As in other contexts, occupying public spaces appears to be a means of fighting for the right to housing.
On 12 January 2010 at 4.53 p.m., Haiti suffered the most devastating natural disaster in

- From the Field / camps, catastrophe, refugees, public space, housing, disaster, risk, shanty town, displaced population, Haiti, natural risks

Corridors of exile: a worldwide web of camps

Michel Agier & translated by Eric Rosencrantz — 2010-11-25T21:19:51Z

Urban anthropologist Michel Agier describes how Europe controls migrant populations, keeping them “locked out” of our cities. He also shows how a new, quasi-urban realm is painfully emerging inside the camps themselves.
The topography of migrants in the world at large and in Europe in particular forms a network of what I call “corridors of exile”. In the following, I focus on a few aspects thereof: viz. European migration control policies; the worldwide web of camps for refugees, illegal

- Essays / camps, refugees, city, migration