5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

There has been a marked increase in the number of migrants worldwide over the last half century. The International Organization for Migration estimates that there were around 281 million international migrants in the world in 2020, or 3.6 percent of the global population. The surge poses a major challenge to cities worldwide where newcomers arrive, most immediately in terms of accommodation. Not only do city governments face fiscal and political obstacles to housing migrants, but neighborhoods are often divided over welcoming them. Cities may allocate peripheral or public land for new construction. Migrants may be integrated into the domestic homelessness system. Associations may intervene where there is resistance to reception; intermediaries may engage in assistance, networking, or gatekeeping. Sometimes, migrants draw upon their social capital to define their own solutions by building encampments, doubling up, or finding informal housing situations, pooling funds to rent or construct homes, or engaging in secondary migration.

This paper presentation session encourages submission on such topics as: creative solutions to the housing challenges of migrants; variation across cities in their formal and informal housing allocation to migrants; ethnic, networked and collective resources and strategies to access housing; segregation of migrant housing; life in encampments and evictions; homelessness among migrants; NIMBYism / neighborhood resistance to housing migrants; migrants’ informal and self-build housing; the experience of sharing dwelling units; repurposing existing structures for residences; variation in conditions for climate or war refugees vs. other migrants.