Sara Bonfanti has recently published an article in Meridiana out of her HOMInG fieldwork in Brescia, Italy. The article investigates residential conflict in a Hindustani suburb in Brescia. How could we account – Bonfanti asks – of real estate speculation within an «ethnic» brokerage system, nourished by poor housing policies and micro-scale transnational capitalism? The case study reveals the short-circuits behind the financialisation of housing: the tension between residents and property owners, between those who extract monetary value from the «house» and those who struggle to have one. Halfway stand the new landlords, long-term immigrants who have invested in «bricks and mortar» to consolidate their status and provide a roof for newly arrived compatriots, triggering a spiral of distrust and dubious reciprocity- 

Keywords:  Urban Ghettoes; Real Estate; Transnational Brokerage; Punjabis in Italy