Interpreting moments of housing precarity along migrants’ biographies: the case of Romanians residing in post-Brexit Britain

Precarity, a now established concept and an increasingly prevalent life condi-tion, has been usefully employed to scrutinise mostly the non-housing chal-lenges faced by migrants, particularly of the vulnerable. Acknowledging thatmigrants are a heterogeneous group and that precarity both shapes and isshaped by housing experiences, this paper takes the case of the privilegedintra-EU free-movement context to offer a dynamic perspective on the fluctu-ating nature of housing precarity. Given that individuals engage with housingin complex, multifaceted, and often transnational ways, this paper adopts abiographical approach within photoelicitation interviews to explore howRomanian migrants’ housing experiences in the UK evolve over time. The anal-ysis reveals how migrants encounter, resist, navigate and confront ‘moments’ ofinadequate housing and precarious homes. The conceptual addition of‘moments’ to the already rich vocabulary of precarity highlights migrants’ rela-tional agency in managing periods of brief or prolonged, heavier or haziervulnerability as they strive to make life liveable and nurture their self throughexposure to others. As people can fall in and out of precarity at short notice,the paper calls for a more agile policy landscape that delivers residents’ agency,choice and support at the right time.