(Un)Making home at the borderlands of the rural and the urban: Chinese migrant women’s narratives

Abstract

This study examines the discourses collected in interviews with second-generation Chinese rural migrant women in Chongqing to unpack how they make sense of home. Guided by Blunt and Dowling’s (2006) critical geography of home and Anzaldúa’s concept of borderlands, we interpret three overlapping themes: (a) constantly (re)making “home” that is neither here nor there; (b) bordering in-between aging parents and young child(ren); (c) social and political changes (un)making home in migration. Our findings endorse approaching “home” as a verb to better capture complex experiences with homing at borderlands.