Displacement in “actually existing” racial neoliberalism: refugee governance in Paris

Abstract

ABSTRACT 3.5 million people currently live without adequate housing in France with some 10 million others in sub-standard accommodations without secure and affordable rental tenure. In Paris, homelessness has increased a staggering 84 percent since 2005 due to cuts in social service expenditure and the downloading of poverty management onto cities and civil society organisations. Since 2015, the European Union has seen a large influx of refugees from protracted conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa—commonly, and problematically, referred to as the European migration crisis. Although France has amongst the highest rates of refugee application rejections in Western Europe, Paris is increasingly becoming a hotspot for displaced people who are fleeing improper treatment in frontier states. The Paris case, as suggested here, illustrates ‘actually existing’ racial neoliberalism pointing to both the material and ideological features of refugee marginalization. The purpose of this article is two-fold: First, it highlights the various issues of political and shelter-based survival for urban refugees—an aspect understudied especially in cities in the global North. Second, the article aims to overlay pre-existing crises of homelessness, inadequate housing, and poverty with the racialization of refugees within the European migration crisis.