Home As a Concept of Belonging: Narratives of Three Generations of Kurdish Women in Diaspora

This paper analyzes the meanings of home(s) found in the biographical narratives of three generations of Kurdish women who live in the diaspora in Germany. Blunt and Dowling (2006) argue that home must be considered a spatial imaginary (the relations between feelings, attachment, and dwelling) and a political space of negotiation and contestation. This sociological analysis of ‘de- territoriality’ and displacement of an ethnic group is guided by the issue of how displaced populations deal with questions of ‘home’ as a concept of belonging(s) such as origin, homeland, nation, diaspora and the hosting country. This research focuses on the collective memories, life stories, migration experiences, and diaspora effect in (re)making homes, sense of belonging(s), and identities from a gendered and inter-generational perspective. This study will show what it feels like to feel at home in terms of belonging and seen from "migration-home nexus" (Boccagni, 2017:2): what is home, how diaspora and hosting country influence the idea of home, and what are the inter-generational transmissions of the sense of home, belonging, and identities? Analysis of the ‘sense of belonging’ found in the narratives of Kurdish women in the diaspora shows transformation not only from one generation to another but also indicates a broader social change because experiences of belonging and identities are dynamic and sensitive to changes since self and society are interconnected and cannot be analyzed separately (Simmel 1964; Elias 2001; May 2011).