Pipes, tunnels, and veins: inhabiting the underground of dispossession in Bucharest, Romania

Michele Lancione

Chapter 5 in A Modern Guide to Urban Poverty, 2026, pp 107-122 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The chapter focuses on the story of a community of homeless people and drug users living in underground tunnels in Bucharest, Romania. It offers three contributions. First, it reflects on the possibility of inhabiting uninhabitable spaces with specific reference to the constitution of relational forms of radical and affective care which might render supposedly “dead” infrastructures as “alive” forms of infrastructural belonging. Second, it offers an overview of the historical conditions that brought the tunnels to the fore. Such a longitudinal view is crucial to appreciate the long-term making of dispossessive forms of urbanity but it is also relevant to better appreciate the politics of life in the underground. Finally, it offers a glimpse of the everyday assemblage of care that has rendered life not only a possibility, but a real and felt “home” for many poor homeless men and women post-1989 in the Romanian capital.

Keywords: Homelessness; Underground; Drug Consumption; Care; Post-Socialism; Bucharest (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781800889682
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