Embodying and resisting urban heat injustice: Migrant vulnerabilities and radical adaptations in El Raval, Barcelona

This article outlines how migrant residents in El Raval, Barcelona, experience and respond to extreme urban heat, foregrounding disaster risk reduction concerns linked to climate‑aggravated heat exposure, housing precarity and unequal access to cooling infrastructures. Drawing on participatory photography and interviews, it examines why and how migrants from majority‑world countries face disproportionate heat risks shaped by intersecting injustices, including racial discrimination, insecure labour conditions and exclusion from public spaces. The study situates these experiences within broader urban transformations that intensify vulnerability while limiting access to formal adaptation measures.

The article recommends strengthening just and inclusive adaptation by recognising and supporting grassroots initiatives that already function as informal heat‑relief infrastructures, such as community‑run gardens, occupied social centres and neighbourhood networks of care. It emphasises the need for urban policies that address structural drivers of vulnerability while ensuring that formal climate shelters are culturally welcoming, accessible and open when most needed.