Managing Refugees’ Housing Risks Through Responsibilisation Practices

Abstract

This article examines the concepts of “housing risk” and “responsibilisation,” and their impact on housing inclusion for refugees in a northern Swedish municipality. The interviews reveal that local policies often fail to recognize the welfare state’s responsibility to ensure housing for refugees, instead shifting this burden to social workers, individuals, and informal networks. Social workers face ethical dilemmas in balancing their roles as defenders of housing rights and extensions of the welfare state. The findings suggest that the discursive framing of refugees as “risky objects” reflects an ideology that discourages their long‐term settlement and silences housing inequality. Consequently, managing refugees’ housing risks through responsibilisation practices, rather than addressing systemic inequalities and national political failures, risks backfiring. The study calls for a reevaluation of housing policies by acknowledging housing inequalities and incorporating social workers’ insights and local conditions outside metropolitan areas.

Keywords

• homelessness
• housing risk
• refugees
• responsibilisation
• sweden