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Abstract

Building on recent theoretical accounts of “homing” among displaced persons (Boccagni 2022), we analyze how conceptions of home evolve for refugees living in Germany who fled their homes in Ukraine due to Russia’s full-scale invasion. Homing is best understood as a multilayered, perpetual process whereby people seek a home in the future across multiple scales (domicile, community, nation). Refugees represent an especially interesting population for studying the complex dynamics of homing under challenging circumstances, because by definition they have experienced a sharp rupture that has torn them away from their past home in their origin country. Other research on homing by refugees (Brun and Fabos 2015; Deneiko and Aasland 2024) or IDPs (Kabachnik et al. 2010) indicates that memories of the past home(s) and experiences of the present home(s) offer alternative models for imagining future home(s), and some refugees embrace one or the other of these other alternatives, while others hedge, seeking to keep both options open, and still others, stuck in limbo, see neither as viable. We refine this framework by incorporating change over time in the homing orientations of refugees, a focus on homing actions (not just thoughts), and a study of a context (Germany) that offers more ambiguous prospects for extending the present into the future than most other refugee situations. Our data come from 86 in depth interviews conducted with 44 Ukrainian refugees in Germany. Because 2 informants were interview twice and 20 three times, we can trace both stability and change over time in homing orientations and practices and analyze factors that precipitate them. Our findings point to shifts in multiple directions, highlighting the need for a dynamic rather than a purely static perspective in theorizing and analyzing homing among displaced populations.

References

O.Deneiko & A.Aasland, “’Where is Home?’ Perceptions of Home and Future among Ukrainian Refugees in Norway”, Refugee Survey Quarterly, 43, 2024, 347–367.

P. Boccagni, “Homing: A Category for Research on Space Appropriation and ‘Home-oriented’ Mobilities”, Mobilities, 17(4), 2022, 585-601.

C. Brun & A. Fabos A, “Making Homes in Limbo? A Conceptual Framework”, Refugee, 1, 2015, 5–17.

P. Kabachnik, J. Regulska & B. Mitchneck, “Where and When is Home? The Double Displacement of Georgian IDPs from Abkhazia”, Journal of Refugee Studies, 23(3), 2010, 315–336.