Negotiations of Urban Ontological Security: The Impact of Housing Insecurity on Being-in-the-City

ABSTRACT Housing insecurity has rendered urban life inherently unpredictable owing to the constant increase in rent. Consequently, housing insecurity impacts urban residents’ well-being and feelings of security. Considering this fact, this study aims to understand renters’ subjective perceptions of rental housing insecurity by exploring the ties between housing and ontological insecurity. Drawing on qualitative interviews and photo-elicitation with participants of different age groups in Berlin, this study engages with coping strategies for insecurities on the rental housing market. We apply the concept of ontological security to private tenants’ situations, and thereby, develop a spatial perspective on housing insecurity. The study’s results suggest that ontological security is continuously negotiated and shifting, and that urban geographical imaginations, contribute to residents’ notions of “being-in-the-city.”