Making rent

How forced migrant families access private rental housing in the Biqa’ Valley, Lebanon

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12242561
AutoresHannah Sender (0000-0001-9730-338X, University College London, autor de correspondencia)
Año2024
Volumen36
Número2
Páginas401-417
Fecha de publicación2024-09-16
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEnvironment and Urbanization (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0956-2478 • E-ISSN: 1746-0301
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/09562478241276722
OpenAlexW4402554673
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas29

The private rental market is a key provider of housing to forced migrants. This paper examines qualitative data from case study research in rapidly urbanizing towns in the Biqa’ Valley, Lebanon, focusing on Syrian forced migrants’ efforts to access housing through the local private rental sector. Building on literature about landlord–tenant relations and anthropological work on kin, I argue that rental agreements ought to be understood as both financial and social arrangements, which involve family members, landlords and middlemen ( shaweesh) in complex rental ecologies. I find that young Syrians are caught up in evolving financial and social obligations, which make inhabitation possible, but which perpetuate gendered and xenophobic forms of dispossession. I argue that humanitarian and development actors advocating for the right of forced migrants to settle in urban areas ought to avoid perpetuating reliance on an inequitable private rental sector

Business · Demographic economics · Economic growth · Economics · Forced migration · Migrant workers · Political science · Refugee · Rental housing · Renting · Socioeconomics · Law · Middle East Politics and Society · Urban and Rural Development Challenges · Urban Planning and Governance