Making it Home: An Aesthetic Methodological Contribution to the Study of Migrant Home-Making and Politics of Integration

Concepts of home and home-making are central, materially and metaphorically to the politics and policies of migration and integration. Yet, dominant integration discourses largely view home as a singular space, located in one place and time, implicitly framing migrants' fluid and multifaceted experience and creation of home as incomprehensible, deviant and potentially disturbing. The MaHoMe project directly addresses migration and integration challenges by examining how migrants make and make sense of home amidst the complex and divergent politics of integration in three host societies: UK, Denmark and Sweden.
Our multi-disciplinary approach, using multi-sited ethnographic methods, combines critical discourse analysis, visual ethnography, and participatory aesthetic methods. Our novel approach analyses data on comparative-historical perspectives on integration policy-making and (hi)stories of migrant home-making, and adds participatory aesthetic methods focusing on migrant contemporary cultural expressions through visual imagery and soundscapes derived from smartphones in order to empirically engage with migrants experiences and expressions of home and home-making.
Working with NGOs and migrants as co-researchers, MaHoMe offers a unique comparative exploration of national integration policies and their cultural effects. Our collaborative research processes and outputs (an interactive digital platform, an aesthetic methodological toolbox, a docu-fictive film, publications, a Policy Recommendation Document and an touring exhibition ) are designed for maximum societal impact, ensuring engagement and dissemination to a wide range of stakeholders, policy makers, and audiences.