XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

560

Migrant Home-Making in the Era of Fortified Borders: Reproducing the Past, Resisting the Present, Redefining the Future?

RC31 Sociology of Migration (host committee)

Language: English and Spanish

Around the globe, we see the rise of populist nationalist leaders building on fear to promote migrant exclusion, expulsion and deportation regimes. While many migrants feel trapped and are living under increasingly restrictive police surveillance, they are still making homes for themselves, materially and symbolically, in these new places of destination. How are the cognitive, emotional and practical dimensions of past “homelands” and “homes” recreated under the harsh circumstances of this new world order of border fortification? What social practices and sensory experiences enable the grassroots reproduction of home(land) memories and emotions? To what extent do these home-making practices sustain immigrant communities? And finally, how do these accumulated practices transform social life, institutions and the built environment in the new locales? We seek empirical studies that draw attention to place-based activities and practices that provide a counterpoint to recent emphasis on transnational flows, circuits and networks. Examples include leisure, religious, civic initiatives, and any ways of appropriating public space and reconfiguring it as a source of identification and belonging. Papers in this session will address how migrants use their new material settings and multi-sensorial experiences to construct day-to-day home(land) re-creations.