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Migration and Domestic Space: Ethnographies of Home in the Making

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This open access book provides insight into the domestic space of people with an immigrant or refugee background. It selects and compares a whole spectrum of dwelling conditions with ethnographic material covering a variety of national backgrounds – Latin America, North and West Africa, Eastern Europe, South Asia – and an equally broad range of housing, household and legal arrangements. It provides a fine-grained understanding of migrants’ lived experience of their domestic space and shows the critical significance of the lived space of a house as a microcosm of societal constellations of identities, values and inequalities. The book enhances the connection between migration studies and research into housing, social reproduction, domesticity and material culture and provides an interesting read to scholars in migration studies, policy makers and practitioners with a remit in local housing and integration policies.

“This wonderful edited collection extends our understanding of migration not only into the confines of the domestic space but also into the territory of the ethnographer. What does it mean to be a guest in a migrant home? This collection of chapters traverses this question in diverse settings and circumstances of homemaking […]. Boccagni and Bonfanti have skilfully created an intricate lace of ethnographic accounts that provides a nuanced understanding of the built environments where migrants live, how they relate to their homes and how this is articulated in their attitudes toward majority society. The chapters, each on its own and together as a collection, advance our understanding of the researcher being a guest in the migrant home, just like the migrant being a guest in the host country. This complexity of ethnography and positionality makes this edited book an essential reading for migration scholars and ethnographers alike!”

Iris Levin, Lecturer in Urban Studies, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia


“This book demonstrates how ethnographies of home and dwelling can bear on the study of migration and its manifestation in domestic space. Entering someone’s home as a researcher challenges our ethical registers: the researcher moves between being a stranger and a guest. The authors point to the dilemmas researchers encounter in intimate settings and how they might be resolved. A valuable and timely book for researchers on dwelling, home and movement.”

Cathrine Brun, Professor of Human Geography, Centre for Lebanese Studies, Oxford, UK

 

"This excellent collection delves into the relationship between migration, domesticity, and material culture. It is ethnographically rich and impressively varied in its geographical scope, with insights that will prove extremely useful to scholars and practitioners alike. The great strength of the volume lies in the fascinating diversity, granular detail and methodological care of the contributions, with authors deploying concepts and arguments that prepare a great deal of fertile ground for future work."

Tom Scott-Smith, Associate Professor of Refugee Studies and Forced Migration, University of Oxford

 

“This insightful collection departs from the simple yet significant question of roles: What happens when the researcher/participant relationship, becomes guest/host instead? By seeing and interpreting domestic spaces as ethnographic field sites, the contributions shed light on refugees’ and other migrants’ lived experiences of home and housing. Drawing on empirical evidence from diverse types of homes, across geographic locations, Migration and domestic space: Ethnographies of home in the making offers valuable and fresh perspective, encouraging new connections between material and emotional, public and private, in migration research.”

Marta Bivand Erdal, Research Professor in Migration studies, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).

Author(s): Paolo Boccagni, Sara Bonfanti
Series: IMISCOE Research Series
Publisher: Springer-IMISCOE
Year: 2023

Language: English
Pages: 259
City: Liège

Contents
Notes on Contributors
Chapter 1: Introduction: Stranger, Guest, Researcher – A Case for Domestic Ethnography in Migration Studies
1.1 From Researcher vs Informant to Guest vs Host: An Emerging Research Perspective
1.2 Why Domestic Ethnography, Why with Migrants and Refugees: Four Research Directions
1.2.1 Entering into the Domestic and Its Faceted Interaction with the “Outside”
1.2.2 Tackling Societal Questions from the Bottom-Up and from the Inside-Out
1.2.3 Advancing Reflexive and Qualitative Research on Migrants and Refugees
1.2.4 Getting Closer to Migrant Life Conditions and Prospects, Both “Subjective” and “Objective”
1.3 Twelve Ways to Enter Migrant Homes: An Overview of the Book
References
Chapter 2: A House of Homes: On the Multiscalarity and Ambivalence of Homemaking in a Multicultural Condominium in Italy
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Case Study and Methodology
2.3 How I Entered Migrant Homes: Field Access and the Researcher’s Positionality
2.4 Material, Spatial and Affective Everyday Homemaking
2.5 Between Private, Community and Public: The Ambivalence of Homemaking Practices
2.6 The Multiscalarity of Homemaking
2.7 The Reproduction of Gender Boundaries as the Dark Side of Home
2.8 Conclusion
References
Chapter 3: The Next-Door Migrant: Autoethnography of Everyday Home Encounters across Difference
3.1 Introduction
3.2 The Courtyard as Liminal Zone
3.2.1 Fatima: Baking for the Community
3.2.2 TingTing: Playing with Differences
3.2.3 Maryna: Remembering Together
3.3 Conviviality and Transversal Rituals
3.4 Conclusion
References
Chapter 4: Welcome upon Conditions: On Visiting a Multigenerational Immigrant House(hold)
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Diaspora Studies and British Asian Ages of Migration: A Literature Review
4.3 Methodology in Context
4.4 Visiting Diasporic Homes in London: Three Case Studies
4.4.1 How Poplar Became Popular: The Domestic Space of Saeed
4.4.2 Faking Elitism in Wembley: The Domestic Space of Padmini
4.4.3 Rituals of Home Screening in Southall: The Domestic Space of Bachan
4.5 Discussion: The Mirroring Game of Hos(ti)pitality
4.6 Conclusion
References
Chapter 5: Shared Flats in Madrid: Accessing and Analysing Migrants’ Sense of Home
5.1 Introduction: Accessing the Shared Household
5.2 Sharing Rentals in Madrid
5.3 Geometries of Flat Sharing
5.3.1 The Tenants
5.3.2 The Lease Leader
5.3.3 The Landlords
5.3.4 Roles, Attachment and Control
5.4 Dwelling and Developing a Sense of Home
5.4.1 Compartmentalising Domestic Space
5.4.2 A Dispersed Sense of Home
5.5 Conclusion
References
Chapter 6: ‘Visiting Home’ as a Method and Experience: Researching Russian Migrants’ Homes in the UK
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Researching Homes: A Personal Life Perspective
6.3 A Case Study of Russian Migrants’ Homes
6.3.1 Research Design
6.3.2 Changing Fieldwork Experience
6.4 To Invite and to Be Invited: Some Reflections on Home-Based Interviews
6.5 Conclusion
References
Chapter 7: Rooms with Little View: Reluctant Homemaking and the Negotiation of Space in an Asylum Centre
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Approaching Refugee Accommodations via “Domestic” Ethnography
7.2.1 Ethnographies of/in Camps: An Overview
7.2.2 Lived Experience and Inner Thresholds in Asylum Centres: A Case Study
7.3 “It’s not good to always stay home”
7.4 Inside the Rooms: Routines, Displays of the Self, Traces
7.4.1 Inner Domestic Routines and Cultures
7.4.2 Taste, Aesthetics and Group Alignments
7.4.3 Tracing Back What Is No More There, over Time
7.5 Across the Rooms: Shifting Boundaries of Appropriation, Attachment and Care
7.6 Views from the Room: Looking Out, Looking Forward
7.7 To Conclude: The Analytical Difference of Being in, the Practical Difference of Being (Also) Out
References
Chapter 8: (In)Visibility: On the Doorstep of a Mediatized Refugees’ Squat
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Overlapping Histories of Abandonment
8.3 Unsettled Homes
8.4 (In)Visibility
8.5 Resisting Observation
8.6 Concluding Remarks
References
Chapter 9: Looking for Homes in Migrants’ Informal Settlements: A Case Study from Italy
9.1 Introduction
9.2 On the Structural Constraints to Housing and Homemaking
9.2.1 Residual Housing
9.2.2 The Social Foundations of Home in Informal Settlements
9.3 Migrants’ Homes in Informal Settlements and How to Find Them
References
Chapter 10: Attending Houses of Worship as Homes Out of the Home
10.1 Introduction
10.2 On Considering Houses of Worship as Semi-public Home Spaces
10.3 Hidden in Plain Sight? Social Relations Within Sacred Spaces
10.3.1 The Emplacement of Indian Religious Minorities in Italy: An Overview
10.3.2 Making Sense of Thresholds within Hindu and Sikh Houses of Worship
10.4 Methodological and Ethical Implications of Our Case Study
10.4.1 Changing Positionality Due to Biographical Experiences
10.4.2 Changing Positionality Due to Social Characteristics and Internal Conflicts
10.4.3 The Author’s Positionality as a Political Tool
10.5 Conclusions: Doing ‘Community Home Visits’ Within Migration and Diaspora Studies
References
Chapter 11: Transnational Circulation of Home Through Objects: A Multisited Ethnography in Peruvian ‘Homes’
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Linking Home, Migration and Everyday Materialities
11.3 Methods, Context and Ethics
11.4 Understanding the Role of Objects in the Transnational Circulation of Home
11.4.1 A Baby Jesus Sculpture
11.4.2 Looking at My Daughter Through a Kitchen Cabinet
11.4.3 Creating a Corner for the Dead in the Domestic Space
11.5 Discussion and Final Remarks: On the Added Value of Doing Ethnography in the Domestic Space
References
Chapter 12: Migrant Domestic Space as Kinship Space: Dwelling in the “Distant Home” of One’s in-Laws
12.1 Introduction
12.2 On Positionality and Reflexivity
12.2.1 Beyond the Insider/Outsider Divide
12.2.2 Relational Thresholds
12.3 Inside Homes
12.3.1 Food, Everyday Habits and Space Control as Ways of Home-Making and Unmaking in Punjab
12.3.2 Empty Migrant Rooms in Remittance Houses
12.3.3 Memory Objects within Punjabi Homes
12.3.4 From Punjab to Italy and Back: Circulation and Multiscalarity within Homes
12.4 Conclusions
References
Chapter 13: Whose Homes? Approaching the Lived Experience of “Remittance Houses” from Within
13.1 Introduction
13.2 A Theoretical and Methodological Background
13.3 Approaching Migration and Family Life from the Inside-Out: Five Tales of Migrant Houses
13.3.1 It Stays Here, and Needs Everyday Care: The Family House of a “Non-Migrant”
13.3.2 In Transition: Dwelling in the House of a Potential Returnee
13.3.3 Left Behind? One Empty Remittance House, from Within
13.3.4 Back Home for Good: From the Dream House to Living-Together-Apart
13.3.5 Leave, Stay or Return: The Safe Haven Is There, and Expands over Time
13.4 Entering the House, Moving Out, Moving Forward: A Discussion
13.5 To Conclude
References
Afterword: The Expansiveness of Home: Hospitality, Publicness, and Ethnography
Hospitality Double Work: Concept and Ethnography’s Shadow
Visibility and Shared Space: The Publicness of Home
Ethnography’s Promise
References