Mobilities and Homemaking

This collection brings ethnographic insight into the ever more topical question of homemaking, exploring a diverse range of socio-political contexts worldwide (from Jewish returnees from Israel to Ukraine to young gay South Asians in London) and provoking new understandings of the material and symbolic process of making oneself “at home.”

As we grapple with a growing refugee crisis, a hardening of anti-immigration sentiment, and deepening communal segregation in many parts of the developed world, questions of the nature of home and homemaking are increasingly critical. This collection brings ethnographic insight into the practices of homemaking, exploring a diverse range of contexts ranging from economic migrants to new Chinese industrial cities, Jewish returnees from Israel to Ukraine, and young gay South Asians in London. While negotiating widely varying social-political contexts, these studies suggest an unavoidably multiple understanding of home, while provoking new understandings of the material and symbolic process of making oneself “at home.”