Place and space in home-making processes and the construction of identities in transnational migration

Abstract

AbstractIn this era of increasing migration and the trend of growing social, political, and cultural integration worldwide, it is questionable whether the concept of home in its traditional meaning still applies or has to be redefined. Many social scientists agree that the mobile individual of the twenty-first century has become uprooted and thus disoriented or that the idea of home has lost its significance. Since home is still closely tied to one’s identity, the current discussions on the construction of identity must also be incorporated in the analytical processes of home-making. The objective is to point out new ways of understanding the idea of home by taking into consideration and analytically separating theories on plural identities and cultural hybridization on the basis of case studies involving European transmigrants in Marrakesh. These new dimensions of multilocal and spatial constructions of home correspond better to the requirements of the twenty-first century and the life worlds of mobile i...