Multiscalar Un-homing: Residents’ Experiences of Interventions for Social Mix

Abstract

Social mix has become a goal of urban policy in the Western world. However, research has emphasised a lack of expected effects, such as increased social and economic opportunities for disadvantaged groups. In addition, the experiences of residents during the implementation phase are underexplored. The purpose of this article is to explore how residents in a multi-ethnic public housing neighbourhood in Copenhagen, Denmark, experience interventions for social mix. This article goes beyond the migrant/citizen distinction and highlights the perspectives of those affected by the ghetto legislation. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the analysis shows how residents live under a condition of evictability and risk forced relocation. Moreover, the analysis demonstrates how people lose their homeplace even when remaining as their neighbourhood undergoes physical and social transformation. Highlighting discursive, material and psychological dimensions of un-homing, the article concludes that un-homing is multiscalar and unequally distributed as income, age and migration background affect experiences of un-homing. By showing how policies targeting migrants at the local neighbourhood level also have consequences for non-migrants and on multiple scales, the article contributes to bridging the research fields of critical migration studies and critical urban studies and adds new empirical knowledge to the literature about social mix.