Paper short abstract:

Globalization, tourism and migration lead to an increasing number of multiple homes, which link different parts of the world and evoke new practices of belonging. Based on an ethnographic research, this paper aims to analyze the history and present of cross-border dwelling within Austria and Turkey.

Paper long abstract:

"Double Homes, Doubles Lives?" was the key question of Orvar Löfgren and Regina Bendix in the 37th edition of Ethnologia Europaea. Globalization, tourism and migration lead to an increasing number of multiple homes that link different parts of the world. Which new practices of dwelling evoke in the process? How do residents of so-called double homes unite them in their everyday lives? Based on an ethnographic research, this paper aims to analyze the history and present of cross-border dwelling of Austrian-Turkish migrants.

Following the ethnological maxim to scrutinize 'big questions' in small and assessable microcosms, the study focuses on the transnational nexus of Stubai Valley in Austria and the region of Uşak in Turkey. Initiated by pioneer migrants and proceeded through family reunion, summer visits, marriages, communication and media, these two areas build a dynamic transnational social space (Thomas Faist). The ties and networks are sustained through remittance practices, i.e. sending and receiving of money, gifts, daily objects, but also of ideas, values, norms and social capital. All these attributes materialize in the migrants´ multiple houses: a confined rented company flat in Stubai Valley, a multi-generation-house in the city of Uşak or a single-family home with garden in the village of origin comprise the history of migration, the (myth of) return, the everyday life of circular dwelling and transnational participation and belonging. By combining material culture approaches with a transnational ethnography, this study examines the self-evidence of living in multiple homes.