Migration and everyday matters: Sociality and materiality

Abstract

In order to provide a framework for the four papers in this special issue, this editorial foregrounds the relevance of studying migration from the perspective of everyday matters. We examine the multiple and overlapping meanings associated with the idea of the everyday and what these conceptualisations offer to migration studies. In particular, we suggest that understanding sociality and materiality as part of the experience of migration can help to illuminate migrants' everyday experiences as well as refine accepted notions of the everyday. We introduce how the papers engage with the social relations and material cultures that constitute experiences of migration in different contexts and via a variety of methodologies that lend insights into understandings of migration. In the conclusion we reflect on some of the ways in which studying the everyday can help to inform not just academic agendas but also policy and community programmes in order to better address migrants' experiences and needs. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Stamp of identities: Negotiating diasporic Chinese subjectivity in philatelic space

“…The emerging literature on cultural anthropological studies of migrants has recognised that migrants construct and articulate identities not in isolation from the material world they live in, but through it (Appadurai 1986;Basu and Coleman 2008;Ho and Hatfield 2010). It is particularly important to look at how, through situated corporeal engagement with the material world, migrants make themselves (Ingold 2000).…”

Materialising exile in Solanas’ 'Tangos: El Exilio de Gardel'

“…Butler, 1990;Laclau and Mouffe, 1985), to a focus on the materiality of the physical world was starting to become apparent in the field of cultural studies (e.g. Latour, 1993;Tilley, 2004;Miller, 2005;Ho and Hatfield, 2011). But in this shift the material world is not regarded just as the world of discrete entities.…”

“…Instead, mostly building on structuration theories (Bourdieu, 1977;Giddens, 1986) and philosophical views dating back to Hegel, objects and places came to be seen as embedded in social relations. As such, the material world is seen as both constituted by and constitutive of those relations (Miller, 1987;Geismar and Horts, 2004;Anderson and Tolia-Kelly, 2004;Ho and Hatfield, 2011). Moreover, the shift does not necessarily entail a rejection of the social ontology underpinning perspectives that focus on discourse and meaning.…”

Negotiating identities and emotional belonging: Shan in northern Thailand

“…Under such conditions, the forging and maintaining of connections and practices of adaptation and remembering are integral to migrants 'placing' their identities and engaging with local society (Ehrkamp, 2005). Through everyday sociality, performativity and materiality, memories are entwined into the present and embedded in connections to the 'homeland' from which migrants are distanced as well as the local 'home' in which they reside (Ehrkamp, 2005;Ho and Hatfield, 2011;Tolia-Kelly, 2004a). …”

“…The idea of home thus provides a space of emotional connection and belonging that is separate from 'homeland' (which can be understood as the political territory and dominant nationalist narrative of the state) (see Blunt, 2005;Ho and Hatfield, 2011;Lam and Yeoh, 2004). Home is produced through the rooting of emotions and the material and symbolic enactment of belonging and identity to create a sense of physical, as well as symbolic and emotional, safety (Ehrkamp, 2005;Jackson 2015b).…”