Making Oneself at Home

Abstract

Arnold and Meskimmon converse about shared and different experiences of relocating from southern Africa and the United States to Britain, which they identify as ‘home’. Their dialogue teases out the complexities of defining ‘homeland’ from the perspectives of culture and domicile. In an exchange of memories and references to writers, theorists and visual artists, Arnold and Meskimmon discuss the consequences of migration in terms of nationality, citizenship, denizenship, and art practice. The dialogue generates personal testimony about ‘be(com)ing’ transcultural and making oneself at home to effect a sense of belonging. Encounters with place and the roles of cultural artefacts are cited as mediators in negotiating relationships with ‘home’, and the concept of denizenship is advocated as a means of thinking through kinds of citizenship that might better describe the experiences of women as they make themselves at home in a global world.