University Life and Australian Homes: Three Case Studies of International Muslim Students in Brisbane

Abstract

<div style="left: 100.81px; top: 546.808px; font-size: 10.6639px; font-family: sans-serif; transform: scaleX(0.992902);">Despite a significant increase in enrolments of postgraduate international Muslim students within Australian universities, little is known about their perceptions of life within Australian homes while undertaking their studies. The aim of this study is to investigate the ways in which students’ cultural and religious traditions affect their use of domestic spaces within the homes in which they reside. The research found that participants faced some minor difficulties in achieving privacy, maintaining modesty and extending hospitality while able to perform their daily activities in Australian designed homes. The findings suggest that greater research attention needs to be given to the development of Australian home designs that are adaptable to the needs of a multicultural society. Australian society encompasses diverse cultural customs and requirements with respect to home design, and these are yet to be explored.</div>

A Review of the Meaning of Home in Multi-Ethnic Settings

“…All reviewed papers were examined on how ethnicity influences physical space and how space is produced culturally. This includes 'nonspecific-functional spaces' (Hu, 2008), 'transitory spaces' (Özçetin & Rottmann, 2022), 'in-between' spaces (Masran, 2019), 'part-time' spaces (Abdelmonem, 2012) and 'negotiated' spaces (Othman, 2014;Rahim & Hashim, 2012), revealing a rich variety of cultural and social influences in the physical home settings, to which housing policymakers are oblivious (Abed et al, 2022;Suryadi et al, 2022;Ureta, 2007). Table 2 below presents the contributions of reviewed papers and their views on home from each context of their studies.…”

“…For it to feel like a 'home', these families appropriated the physical configurations of their new domestic space to suit their perceived needs (Ureta, 2007). A similar challenge was faced by Muslim dwellers when occupying contemporary Australian houses as they are required to adapt to the extroversion design despite gender and social boundaries being constantly stressed in Islamic practice (Othman, 2014). Vale (1999) identified continued evidence for this practice in politicised urbanism in developing countries such as Malaysia.…”