Finding homes beyond houses: An exploration of methodology in researching migrant experiences of home at the city-level

This paper discusses the methodology used in a PhD project on young migrants’ experiences of home, and highlights the methods that were most effective in revealing the ways in which they created homes in the city of Brussels. There is a movement in the social sciences to reevaluate notions of home and homelessness (Cieraad 2010, Blunt 2005, etc.), and this is particularly urgent in the case of migrant incorporation and homemaking. Now that the concept of home includes places, processes, and experiences that exist beyond the walls of a ‘house,’ it is necessary that the methods used to investigate this concept match the dynamic reality of what home may be.

To gather the ethnographic data for this project, I spent time with participants in occupied buildings, group housing, and occasionally in private residences. It became clear that these places did not always satisfy people’s need for home and belonging, and so I also met participants in the locations that did. I used a mix of semi-structured interviews and participant observation as I joined participants in art and language classes, performed with them in a music group, participated in protests, and spent time ‘hanging out’ with them on the street and in cafes. The necessity of ‘following’ participants to various destinations where they made themselves at home supported the argument that there are numerous homes in people’s lives, and it is this investigation that the paper examines.