The "Homemaking" Subproject

Researcher: H. Pınar Şenoğuz, University of Göttingen, Institute of Cultural Anthropology/European Ethnology

Subject Areas: Cultural Anthropology and Migration Studies

The research subproject "Uncertainty and Homemaking among Displaced Women in Lower Saxony" is supported by VW Stiftung as an additional module within the context of the "Politics of Reception & Arrival" subproject. It aims to study the processes of home-making among displaced women with diverse age, ethnic, race and social background, which have been caught in a limbo. Drawing on a biographical-narrative approach, it examines how the search for home emerges as a coping strategy among the women in tackling the uncertainties driven from the displacement. Emphasizing home-making as a highly gendered endeavor that puts more responsibility on women than men, it examines how the women draw on various elements of material culture, memories and networks in homeland, transit countries and host country to engage in home-making. The research prioritizes but is not limited to- the reception centers, Gemeinschaftsunterkünfte and other housing in Lower Saxony, which accentuates the liminality for the refugees.

Contact

Institute of Cultural Anthropology/European Ethnology
University of Göttingen
Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14
37073 Göttingen
Phone: +49 551 39 21247
hsenogu@uni-goettingen.de