Abstract
The acquisition of houses was one of the primary goals for those who left Turkey in the 1960s and 1970s to work in the Netherlands. Many attained this goal. However, as the return to Turkey was continuously postponed and eventually called off by many, the roles of these houses in the lives of their owners greatly changed. This article uses a biographical perspective to discuss the altered significance of those houses and increase our understanding of how the significance of houses in Turkey belonging to (former) migrants develops within the transnational lives of dwellers. However, this transnationality is not only created by the Turkish-Dutch themselves who reside in at least two places, but also by representatives of the Dutch state who assess these houses to check on tax payments and welfare entitlement outside the state territory. These assessments are met with resistance, the rationale behind which can be better understood from a biographical perspective.
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