The Impact of Exclusionary Legislation on the Housing Experiences of Blacks and People of Colour in Berlin from Ukraine

Drawing on 26 interviews and ethnography among third-country nationals from Ukraine in Berlin, this study demonstrates how exclusionary social policies in Germany have impacted on the everyday realities of black and people of colour, that is, third-country nationals fleeing the war in Ukraine. While there has been much discussion of exclusionary social policies, border regimes and discriminatory actions in scholarship regarding refugees and asylum-seekers from working-class backgrounds, there has been only limited discussion of the impact of discriminatory policies on skilled and middle-class refugees and migrants who have been displaced and who have come to settle in metropolitan regions in the Global North. This study examines that the experiences of formally educated third-country nationals who were denied temporary protection and encountered several challenges and obstacles regarding housing and accommodation in Berlin. In this study, I show that, although third-country nationals from the Global South who entered Europe from Ukraine were not illegalized or made deportable, but because they were denied temporary protection, they ended up in precarious situations in Berlin, as they were barred from finding housing in the formal sector, and several of them were rendered homeless. Consequently, as this study will also show, several blacks and people of colour from Ukraine ended up in a similarly precarious position as deportable and illegalized refugees and thus needed to network within civil society in order to find accommodation that racialized refugees in Berlin had been using for almost a decade. Data is drawn in two phases. I first interviewed 14 refugees during April and May 2022 at the Tubman network. A year later, in May 2023, I contacted some of the refugees and interviewed them in order to gain further insights into their situations. Accordingly, I interviewed twelve more individuals, six of whom were women, the remaining six men.