Home without family, family without home: Young migrants’ experiences of home and relationships in the city of Brussels

Family and home are often considered inseparable, but the meaning of both of these terms are being re-evaluated in recent scholarship. Their re-evaluation often emerges in studies of migration, where traditional western ideas of family - as being nuclear and sharing the same physical space - and home - as being sedentary and synonymous with house - are disrupted and brought into question. The movement of people, by force or choice, provides a window into many of the fundamental aspects of relationships, belonging and home. This chapter builds on recent re-imaginings and new ways of thinking about home and family by investigating the home-making and family connections of a group of young first-generation migrants (aged 15-25) of different migratory statuses (undocumented, European citizens, refugees, unaccompanied minors) in the city of Brussels. By using data collected through fieldwork in traditionally non-home spaces - such as city streets, group housing, occupied buildings, and churches - this chapter reveals discoveries about the relationship between home and family, and how one may exist without the other. These relationships are illustrated through the ‘home orbit’ – a new way of picturing and understanding the components of home and how they relate to one another.