Irene Sabaté Muriel

IRENE SABATE MURIEL, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, received a grant in April 2021 to aid research on ‘The Gender Dimension of the Housing Crisis in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (2008-2021).’ In the context of a long housing crisis (2008-2022), many women in the Barcelona metropolitan area are being denied adequate homes. During this twelve-months field research among women with different profiles — alongside housing professionals, activists and experts — ethnographic data have been collected to tackle women’s residential conditions, and how they cope with adversities in this arena. While some of them were under the threat of an eviction or could not afford an adequate home, others suffered more subtle -sometimes only potential- hindrances to self-determine their own residential conditions. Some research participants were struggling for housing justice within the vigorous local movements, and reflected on the predominance of female activists. As commonalities, research participants pointed at the need to take into account some aspects that tend to be seen as extrinsic to the housing question, such as women’s working conditions, the feminization of poverty, the attribution of reproductive duties, the fluidity of household structures, or gender violence. They also accorded great importance to location, and to the proximity of public facilities and social networks, in their quest for adequate housing. A diachronic approach, based on the collection of housing trajectories, has revealed itself as key to tackle the drivers of women’s discrimination within a financialized housing system.