Home and belonging: African women in 'crisis' Greece

Abstract

In a Greek context in which full integration depends upon looking and sounding ‘native’, African women are made hyper-visible in discourses of the Other. Although the right to mobility is much emphasized in debates about migration, it appears to be the rooting or ‘being at home-ness’ of migrants that is most controversial. In both public discourse and personal encounters, these women are reminded daily that they are perceived as not ‘at home’. The widespread perception of them as liminal – at best temporary guests, at worst intruders who do not belong – appears to infuse home-making activities with even greater significance. In this paper, I explore home as a fluid yet meaning-ful and meaning-making idea and practice from the women’s own perspectives; the stories and practices through which a location becomes (or fails to become) a home; and, the communal activities through which women performatively construct, and claim, a sense of belonging.