‘Home,’ The Negotiated Place: Narratives of Transnational Home-Making Practices of Turkish-Germans in Schleswig-Holstein

Abstract Turkish-Germans who first arrived in Germany as ‘guests’ in the 1960s hold diverging attitudes towards their habitat, proving that it remains a negotiated reality to this day. The place they migrated to some time ago has now come to be referred to as ‘here’ or ‘home’, after years of this group’s public and private grappling with the concept. This paper examines the home-making practices of people of Turkish descent in Geesthacht, a German city in the Schleswig-Holstein region. We presume the environment still offers opportunities for Turkish-Germans to display physical amenities that are essential for the development and expression of their transnational identities. Through the use of individual memory and personal narratives, we pledge to understand how different generations have manifested belonging and identity formation in the material and immaterial practices of their home environments, and from this understanding create a narrative of Geesthacht.