Urban Expulsion Regimes: Understanding the Lived Experiences of Housing Insecurity in European Cities

EXPULSE investigates the impact of urban expulsion regimes on the lived experiences of housing insecurity for poor residents in four European cities: Brussels, Amsterdam, Barcelona and Thessaloniki. Amid rising global inequalities, these cities face escalating forms of expulsion, including housing evictions, the displacement of the poor from welfare systems, and the exclusion of migrants. Driven by the financialization and commodification of housing, these cities are experiencing severe housing crises, characterised by unaffordable rents and acute shortages in social housing, leading to widespread housing evictions. This study offers a timely and critical analysis of these urban expulsion regimes, defined as the interplay between state policies, housing market regulations, and moral discourses, alongside the governance practices of street-level bureaucrats and private actors involved in eviction processes across Europe.

EXPULSE provides a comparative analysis of how these regimes influence poor residents’ housing trajectories and their access to urban citizenship. The project’s methodology is groundbreaking in its integration of quantitative data on urban eviction rates with qualitative data from expert interviews and institutional ethnographies within eviction enforcement agencies, as well as biographical interviews and relational ethnographies with urban residents at risk of eviction. It thereby offers an unprecedented, in-depth comparative overview of eviction trends within and across the four cities under study while revealing the lived experiences and processual nature of the eviction process. By merging insights from urban and migration studies, the project aims to develop an innovative interdisciplinary framework that highlights how urban expulsion regimes shape housing and citizenship rights, and exacerbate, alleviate, or generate inequalities within cities.

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme ((grant agreement No 101219733).