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Presentation short abstract

This study examines the housing conditions of waste pickers in Barcelona, revealing high levels of informality, homelessness, and displacement. Findings from an extensive survey show how urban governance enacts racial banishment, reinforcing dispossession and everyday border control.

Presentation long abstract

The intersection of housing and migration has been a topic of growing interest in research of global cities. Ongoing patterns of armed conflict, climate change, and economic instability predict an increase in mass displacement. Meanwhile, in cities, the intensified financialization of land and housing and large-scale development is leading to a growing scarcity of affordable housing. This article examines the housing conditions of waste pickers, with particular attention to the particularity of migrants. An extensive literature review reveals that while there is a study of the housing conditions and typologies in the global south, this remains largely unresearched in the global north. To fulfil this gap, this research showcases the results from a survey assessing the housing conditions of informal recyclers in the region of Barcelona. Results indicate that waste pickers’ housing remains largely informal and that they are systematically excluded from accessible or social housing provision. Approximately half of the population lives in informal arrangements such as squatting or overcrowded rental units, while the other half experiences homelessness. Displacement is widespread, revealing how contemporary urban governance enacts “racial banishment” by excluding racialized bodies from the city. Applying a decolonial framework of Dispossessive Urbanism as both an analytical and empirical lens, this work argues that housing conditions and displacement contribute to the marginalization and border-violence of waste pickers, and highlights the broader calculus of dispossession operating against subjects rendered less than human.