Relations of injustice: An institutional ethnography of refugee homelessness and housing precarity in Wales

Eykyn, Sasha 2026. Relations of injustice: An institutional ethnography of refugee homelessness and housing precarity in Wales. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This thesis examines how housing injustice is practically organised and routinely reproduced in the lives of refugees granted status through the UK asylum pathway in one Welsh local authority area. In the UK, available data and insights suggest that refugees who have received their status through the asylum system are at disproportionate risk of homelessness (Lindley et al. 2025; MHCLG 2025c; NACCOM 2025). However, there remain significant gaps in our understanding of the diversity of experiences of homelessness among refugees; the systems, processes, practices and procedures that govern access to housing among refugees; and what works when it comes to homelessness prevention (Brown et al. 2024b). In addition, there is limited scholarship examining the intersections between Wales’ distinctive approach to sanctuary and settlement (Welsh Government 2019a, 2022b, 2024a) and progressive legislative response to homelessness (Housing (Wales) Act 2014; Homelessness and Social Housing Allocation (Wales) Act 2026). Taking an approach informed by Institutional Ethnography (IE), this research emerged from a concern that institutional responses to homelessness among refugees granted status through the asylum route may inadvertently sustain the very forms of precarity and instability they seek to address. Findings are grounded in data from focus groups, peer research, individual interviews, observation, and policy and legislative analysis. Beginning in accounts of disempowerment, disadvantage and distrust conditioned in and through the asylum process, this thesis examines how newly granted refugees’ experiences of homelessness and precarious housing are given shape by the entanglement of social relations coordinating the ‘move-on’ process, the homelessness system, and the private rented sector (PRS) in the local area. These relations place boundaries on what people are practically able to do to build the lives they want to live following a positive asylum decision. Research findings focus on the enduring effects of the asylum process; the social organisation of information; bureaucratic disorganisation and disempowerment; the psychological dimensions of ‘housing need’; instability, integration and homelessness; and the politics of homelessness response. As such, this thesis has significant implications for work concerned with countering the processes that give shape to housing inequality, injustice and instability in the lives of refugees in Wales.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Schools > Geography and Planning (GEOPL)
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General)
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	1 September 2026
Last Modified:	01 Sep 2026 13:04
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/189189

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