First-generation Turkish women in the 2060 neighbourhood of Antwerp

Abstract

This paper reports on a small-scale case study using an intersectional approach that reflects on sense of place in first-generation Turkish migrant women who migrated to Belgium in the 1970s and who live in Antwerp 2060 (Belgium). It shows how migrant women have taken on efforts to re-enact and renegotiate places in search of interpersonal connection within their new environment. The case study focuses on three significant time periods in the life cycle of the women: before migration, in the extended arrival period, and today. It is empirically supported by semi-structured personal interviews covering place-related life stories situated at the intersection of four social identity categories, i.e. age, gender, socio-economic background, and culture. The analysis illustrates how the benefit of economic migration for these migrant women comes with the sacrifice of social connectedness, a consequence of their ‘deduplicated’ feeling of belonging.

A Systematic Literature Review of Applied Methods for Assessing the Effects of Public Open Spaces on Immigrants’ Place Attachment

“…Furthermore, to what specific places do immigrants build place attachment in urban areas characterized by overlapping racial and ethnic minority populations? [66] How do immigrant women try to re-enact and renegotiate places to pursue their interpersonal connections within the new environment (a neighbourhood)? [79] What is the effect of cultural differences due to migration on the usage of public open spaces (squares)?…”

“…Regarding the investigated immigrants, most articles (19/26) selected a variety of nationalities, while only six studies focused on one specific group [4,[62][63][64][65][66] (Table 1). Although 3 papers did not explain the rationale for selecting the cultural background of the investigated immigrant groups [57,58,67], 14 articles correlated their choice with the increasing immigrant population in the researched areas.…”

“…For instance, seven articles chose natural environments [57,58,60,70,73,74,80] since they affect social activities, leisure, well-being, and place attachment. Moreover, ten papers [62,63,66,68,69,71,[75][76][77]81] studied public places in specific cities or neighbourhoods due to the availability of immigrants in these locations. Three articles [1,4,79] identified and studied public open spaces mainly used by immigrants.…”

“…However, from the analysis, the essential differences between public place descriptions regard the focus on tangible or intangible elements. For example, 35% of articles were more concerned with social features (e.g., [66]), 23% with emotional (e.g., [65]), 23% with place identity (e.g., [72]), and 19% with tangible elements (e.g., [80]). In the latter category, articles predominantly looked at the historical elements and greenery in public places.…”

Exploring Embodied Place Attachment Through Co‐Creative Art Trajectories: The Case of Mount Murals

“…Hence place attachment and place identity must be evaluated differently. Moreover, place attachment can become de-duplicated (Segers, 2018). In the context of migration, and after a period of time, some people find themselves in a situation where they feel at home in more than one place but are not fully at home in either of the concerned places.…”