Home in question: Uncovering meanings, desires and dilemmas of non-home

Boccagni, Paolo; Nieto, Alejandro Miranda

doi:10.1177/13675494211037683

Cited by 25 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…Many chose Finland because it was thought of as a lesser-known destination and a country offering peace, democracy and prosperity. Our informants showed agency in defining Russia and Iraq as 'non-homes' (Boccagni & Miranda Nieto, 2021) and therefore as impossible locations for a meaningful life. Based on our data, therefore, the crisis of trust and the crisis of ontological security were two important drivers of migration due to disillusionment in having a future in one's current location.…”

Section: Ontological Crisis: Lack Of Opportunities Future Existencementioning

confidence: 90%

“…The feeling of security in one's everyday life is, in turn, also related to the kinds of futures one imagines for oneself in that place. Boccagni and Miranda Nieto (2021) propose the use of 'non-home' as a category of practice and a mode of analysis, and not only the antithesis of the more familiar concept of 'home'. When linked to ontological security, non-home is a space in which the routines of everyday life and existence can be performed relatively safely and free from external surveillance.…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Migration Strategies at the Time of a Crisis: Asylum Applicants in Finland

Virkkunen

Koikkalainen

Piipponen

2023

IMISCOE Research Series

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During the 2015-2016 ‘migration crisis’ in Europe, more than 38.000 asylum seekers found their way to Finland by travelling through South and Central Europe and from Russia through the Arctic route. In this chapter, we examine the ‘migration crisis’ as a combination of different forms of crises. We focus on the perspective of the asylum applicants: In which ways do ‘crises’ function as drivers of migration for the people on the move? The analysis is based on two sets of qualitative data collected: 18 official asylum application protocols of Syrian migrants who came to Finland through Northern Russia and so-called the Arctic route and 25 interviews with Iraqi asylum seekers. We argue that the possibilities to settle in, and build a home and sentiments of belonging are dependent on the ability to feel secure in one’s everyday life, trust the system and be able to see a future in that place. The failure of this manifests as two types of crises in the lives of our informants: a crisis of trust, and a personal ontological crisis of existence.

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Section: Ontological Crisis: Lack Of Opportunities Future Existencementioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Migration Strategies at the Time of a Crisis: Asylum Applicants in Finland

Virkkunen

Koikkalainen

Piipponen

2023

IMISCOE Research Series

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“…Throughout the chapter, I explore common patterns in the use(s) of the rooms and in the ways to negotiate the centre inner space, rather than focusing on the narratives on individual residents. While this analytical focus is particularly promising for the remit of this book, I expand on the narrative side of day-to-day life in the centre elsewhere (Boccagni & Miranda-Nieto, 2022;Boccagni, 2023). All over, I use the present tense rather than the past one in an endeavor to do justice to the lived experience of the field.…”

Section: Lived Experience and Inner Thresholds In Asylum Centres: A C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Taking special care of one's body and clothes -the inn-most home and its walls -is also a pragmatic response to racist stigmas, as well as a way to make the most of the only space that lies under one's full control. All that exceeds that basic unit of space, including one's bed and its surroundings, is for some less of a priority, in a particularly harsh form of "non-home" (Boccagni & Miranda-Nieto, 2022).…”

Section: Across the Rooms: Shifting Boundaries Of Appropriation Attac...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Rooms with Little View: Reluctant Homemaking and the Negotiation of Space in an Asylum Centre

Boccagni

2023

IMISCOE Research Series

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Reception centres for asylum seekers, and “camps” more broadly, are a subject of increasing interest in refugee, housing and border studies. Only a fraction of this literature, however, draws on proper ethnographic fieldwork within these infrastructures. A case in point is a recent study I have conducted in an asylum centre in northern Italy. My research focus was on the lived experience of the built environment and on the spatial and temporal boundary-making among residents, and between the latter and service providers. Within rooms and shared kitchens that operate as proxies of a domestic space, people do not simply “wait”. They engage in forms of space appropriation (and to a lesser extent, attachment) that illustrate the significance of homemaking in temporary and unhomely settings. Moreover, the social and material inner space of an asylum centre is far from homogeneous. Against accounts of undifferentiated ghettos or non-places, the chapter illustrates the thresholds and layers of domesticity that refugees as guests negotiate, and that an ethnographer as their guest can capture. Without dismissing the attendant dilemmas, I show the contribution of a “being in” approach to co-produce knowledge on inner domestic routines and cultures, on the ways to (re)present oneself, on the traces of past dwelling. A refugee room gives little of an external view, as long as someone gets stuck in. Yet, it provides a uniquely internal view on their everyday life experience and prospects.

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“…These, in turn, hinder the development of important aspects of personal life (Harris et al., 2020). At the same time, if hangings and fixings are commonly understood as central to the production of “home”, in some settings such as a refugee centre it may well be that residents simply do not want to feel at home, as they know their presence in that place is just transitory (Boccagni and Miranda Nieto, 2022; Gronseth and Thourshaug, 2022; Parrott, 2005). As Bridget’s comments suggest, the feelings of coziness and belonging engendered within similar spaces – if any – end up being temporary, contradictory and fragile.…”

Section: Homey Publics In Refugee Centresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exposing the private, engaging in the public. Asylum seekers, intimate publics and normative performances of public participation

Giudici

Boccagni

2022

Environ Plan D

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By bringing together scholarship on affective (non)citizenship and critical geographies of public space, in this article we examine how the exposure of refugees’ intimate lives, private relationalities and personal histories mediate their conditional access to “the public”. Drawing on long-term ethnographic engagement in the field of asylum in Italy, we show how asylum seekers are confronted with changing patterns of obligation and dependency in both their private and public lives. On the one hand, the elicitation of multiple private life details is the only currency for them to negotiate with state institutions for a potential access to the “right to stay”. On the other hand, their conditional access to the “hosting community” is increasingly contingent on normative performances of public participation, which often involve domestic activities and intimate relations to be cultivated in public or semi-public spaces. These reconfigurations speak about broader redefinitions of the public sphere, oriented towards a rising importance of the intimate as a proper terrain of public legitimacy and inclusion. Yet, exposing the intimate self in the public does not guarantee recognition; rather, the normative incorporation of refugees in the public sphere most often naturalises their conditional belonging in the national space.

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Home in question: Uncovering meanings, desires and dilemmas of non-home

Cited by 25 publications

References 50 publications

Migration Strategies at the Time of a Crisis: Asylum Applicants in Finland

Migration Strategies at the Time of a Crisis: Asylum Applicants in Finland

Rooms with Little View: Reluctant Homemaking and the Negotiation of Space in an Asylum Centre

Exposing the private, engaging in the public. Asylum seekers, intimate publics and normative performances of public participation

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