Intersectionality in the Migrant House: Homes of Migrants from the Former Soviet Union in Metropolitan Tel Aviv, Israel

Abstract

Recent works on migration and transnationalism have been increasingly utilising the intersectionality framework in their analyses of migrants' lived experiences. Yet these works have so far paid little attention to the significance of space in processes of subject formation, even though social categories have always been spatially contingent. In this paper, I aim to address the lack of spatial transnational consideration through a qualitative examination of the meaning of the migrant house and home-building experiences in it, using the lens of the intersectionality framework. I draw on in-depth interviews with and observations of houses of three immigrants from the former Soviet Union who settled in metropolitan Tel Aviv during the 1990s. My findings suggest that each migrant experiences home-building differently, according to the migrant's unique identity intersections. I conclude that using the intersectional framework in the analysis of the meaning of the migrant house contributes to the theorisation of the intersectional framework, as well as to our understanding of the meaning of the migrant house.