Housing Precarity Pathways, Meanings, Influences and Responses among South Asian Migrants to Dublin

Housing affordability and homelessness have been persistent problems both for Irish nationals and migrants over the last decade, but these problems are particularly acute among the latter.

With the exception of those who are seeking asylum in Ireland, non-EEA migrants housing challenges have been largely ignored by policymakers in this country.

The housing situation of non-EEA migrants has also received little attention from researchers and the factors which shape their particular housing problems are not well understood.

In particular neither the interaction between housing precarity and other socio-economic precarities which are more common among migrants (e.g. relating to labour market discrimination or legal status) has not been explored in depth, nor have migrants responses to these challenges and their agency in trying to shape pathways through these precarities.

This research will fill these critical knowledge gaps by examining South Asian migrants lived experiences of housing precarity in Dublin, Irelands capital and largest city.

The project aims to investigate South Asian migrants to Dublin lived experience of precariousness in terms of housing, labour market activity and immigration status and the interaction between these.

The project marries the concepts of housing precarity, multiple precarities and structure-agency integration to guide a ground-breaking, multi-method anthropological study of these migrants precarity.

This innovative analytical framework goes well beyond the current state-of-the-art and has the potential to illuminate the precarity pathways of other marginalised groups in Ireland and internationally.

By employing mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative), this project will examine the interaction between housing-related structures and migrants everyday agency and the role this plays in shaping their access to affordable and suitable homes and housing precarity.