Paper Short Abstract:

This presentation explores the meaning of home for Turkish-Dutch allotment gardeners through the lens of rural heritage. In re-defining heritage as an everyday and emotionally charged practice, it seeks to 'unmake' the assumptions underpinning authorized discourses of heritage.

Paper Abstract:

This presentation seeks to contribute to ongoing debates on the meaning of home, heritage and belonging within the Dutch context within which migrant loyalties are constantly questioned. While social scientific discussions of home aim to move beyond dualities of ‘roots’ and ‘routes’, the recent populist victory of the Partij voor de Vrijheid in the Netherlands demonstrate a greater need for nuance in understanding the experiences of home among minoritized communities. Based on participant observation and object interviews conducted with Turkish-Dutch allotment gardeners, I aim to demonstrate the ways in which their sense of home is informed by and intertwined with their rural heritage. Building on earlier works of critical heritage scholars, I understand rural heritage as an embodied form of relatedness to nature that includes the cultivation of land as well as the forming of intimate relations with humans and non-humans. Through everyday practices of gardening and food sharing, which are instrumental in mediating social relationships, Turkish-Dutch gardeners re-imagine the village life as they remember it in order to create a sense of home that incorporates multiple temporalities and scales, offering new ways of thinking about ‘roots.’ In an attempt to ‘unmake’ the assumptions underpinning institutionalized discourses of heritage, which seek to define heritage outside everyday contexts, I argue that heritage can be a mundane and emotionally charged practice that can be mobilized in order to foster a sense of home.