Home has been used in social sciences as a description, a metaphor and, more recently, as an emergent concept. The goal of this book is to illustrate its analytical power as a lens on the ways in which migrant and displaced people see their life circumstances and attempt to attach a sense of security, familiarity and control over them. Whether as a place or an aspiration towards it, home is a critical entry point into their life histories, experiences and prospects.
Migrants’ rights and opportunities to make themselves at home are not just a private concern – rather, they are a major social and political question. This book addresses it through an original theoretical approach and an edited set of interviews with scholars from different national and disciplinary backgrounds. This reflexive conversation unveils the conceptual, methodological and empirical dimensions of researching home on the move and from the margins.
Overall, Thinking Home on the Move is a powerful and in-depth look into what we as humans perceive as ‘home’ and what this truly means.
Chapter 1. Introduction. On doing homing interviews
Chapter 2. Homemaking from the margins: towards a new conversation on home on the move
Chapter 3. Home as a concept: identity, belonging, and beyond
Chapter 4. Transnational migration and diasporas
Chapter 5. Displacement and asylum
Chapter 6. Material culture, infrastructures and the built environment
Chapter 7. Urban and housing studies
Chapter 8. Conclusions. Investigating the home-migration nexus from the margins
Paolo Boccagni is Professor in Sociology, University of Trento, and Principal Investigator of ERC-StG HOMInG – the home-migration nexus.
Luis Eduardo Pérez Murcia is a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the HOMInG project.
Milena Belloni, formerly part of the HOMInG project, is now a FWO Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of Antwerp.
‘
Thinking Home on the Move convenes leading as well as emerging interdisciplinary voices committed to understanding the nexus between home and mobility in an unequal world. An essential forum for knowledge and dialogue.’ -
Katherine Brickell, Royal Holloway, University of London'This volume is a carefully curated series of ‘homing interviews’ that opens up a whole conceptual and empirical kaleidoscope of meanings, emotions, inflections and practical associations suggested by the idea of home. The range of chapters presents a real treat for migration scholars interested in the way homemaking is both a creative and disruptive process, particularly for those living mobile lives while working at the margins of time, space and society.' -
Brenda S.A. Yeoh, National University of Singapore'This anthology represents a fresh approach to the classical tradition of scholarly dialogue. Thoughtful essays from the authors frame conversations with twenty-six researchers who have each spent years working on questions of migration and home. The collaborative meditation yields a collection that is far greater than the sum of its parts.' -
David Scott FitzGerald, author of Refuge Beyond Reach: How Rich Democracies Repel Asylum Seekers