Bhat, Mohsin AlamLone, Asaf Ali2026-07-162026-07-160066-4812WOS:001792339300001ORCID:/0000-0003-0400-7501/work/220474564https://hdl.handle.net/1885/733813283This article advances the concept of deep segregation to theorise how social exclusion is produced through the everyday organisation of market access rather than through spatial separation alone. Deep segregation refers to a relational and processual form of segregation constituted through segmented routes of access, intermediary networks and communalised market logics that translate social prejudice into ordinary practices of valuation, trust and risk. Drawing on a 3-year ethnography (2017-2020) of rental housing markets in Delhi and Mumbai, the article develops this concept through an analysis of how Muslim tenants navigate urban housing under conditions of informality. We show that discrimination is not merely the outcome of landlord bias or episodic refusal, but an immanent logic of the rental market itself, enacted through trust-based brokerage networks, reputational economies, housing-collective gatekeeping and digital platforms. Muslim tenants may reside in close spatial proximity to Hindu neighbours, yet arrive there through truncated, contingent and communally segmented market pathways long before a tenancy is secured or denied. By conceptualising segregation as a matter of how access is organised rather than only where people live, the article reframes debates on housing discrimination, urban informality and market-mediated inequality. Although grounded in Indian cities, the analysis offers a transferable framework for understanding how exclusion is reproduced through intermediated markets across the urban Global South and beyond.This research was supported by the Azim Premji University Research Grants programme (2017). The fieldwork involved in this research at different stages was led by Abhinav Gupta, Ayushi Bengani, Aamir Khan, Aishani Khurana, Annie Baxi, Chainita Rawat, Chirayu Jain, Gitanjali Prasad, Drishti Rastogi, Gulshan Banas, Jayati Narain, Mashhood Alam Bhat, Naini Chauhan, Radhika Kannan, Rishabh Bajoria, Shajia Sultan, Sushil Kumar, Tapinder Singh, Vaibhav Dutt, Vandita Khanna and Sneha Brigit Zachariah. The authors are deeply grateful to all members of the research team for their intellectual generosity, collaborative labour and sustained engagement that shaped this project over several years. The conceptual, theoretical and empirical richness of the article emerged through collective fieldwork, ongoing discussion and shared reflection across the team. Team members contributed not only to the production of the empirical archive but also to the interpretive and conceptual development of the research in significant ways. We are also grateful to Asang Wankhede for research assistance during the later stages of the project. The first year of this research was based at the Centre for Equity Studies, New Delhi. We are especially grateful to Harsh Mander and our colleagues at the Centre for their support and encouragement throughout the project. We also thank Gautam Bhan, Ghazala Jamil, Mukta Naik, Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Raphael Susewind and Faiz Ullah for their generous engagement with this research at various stages.16enPublisher Copyright: © 2026 The Author(s). Antipode published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Antipode Foundation Ltd.Indian Muslimsbrokersdeep segregationdiscriminationrental markettrusturban informality202610.1111/anti.70176105041630880