Paper short abstract:

The paper aims to demonstrate the intersections between mobility and informal emplacements co-produced in the process of searching and offering of living places outside formal systems while interrogating the meaning of precarious modes of living for refugees and migrants.

Paper long abstract:

The paper traces the ways in which refugees and migrants in precarious legal and economic circumstances configure practices of room-searches in Berlin. The paper will first discuss the bureaucratic process for finding rooms in Berlin and the subsequent challenges for some people to access places to reside through 'formal means'. Second, the paper will track how migrants and refugees pursue alternative methods for searching places to reside. More specifically, the paper traces how refugees and migrants work in conjunction with Berlin-based solidarity groups in order to find access to informally organized housing outside of the formal bureaucratic system. Thus, the transformative work of refugees and migrants with regard to room-searches will be discussed. Much scholarship has discussed the networking system that migrants develop amongst themselves in order to find housing and work. However, there is little discussion on how refugees and migrants work with solidarity groups in order to pursue their particular aims within informal structures. A number of refugees and migrants excluded of the formal housing market approach such groups, which support them in finding accommodation outside of formal systems. Thus, the paper aims to demonstrate the intersections between mobility and informal emplacements co-produced in the process of searching and offering of living places outside formal systems while interrogating the meaning of precarious modes of living for refugees and migrants. Data are drawn on ethnographic work and on-going participation in a Berlin-based group, Schlafplatzorga, which supports refugees and migrants with accommodation.