Migration and the Search for Home

Paolo Boccagni is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Trento, Italy. His main research areas are transnational migration, social welfare, care, diversity and home, and his publication record includes articles in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Global Networks, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and Housing, Theory and Society. He is also Principal Investigator of the European Research Council project HOMInG – The home-migration nexus: Home as a window on migrant belonging, integration and circulation (ERC STG 678456, 2016-2021).

“The book is innovative in its consideration of two allegedly antithetical concepts and combining them together. … This book provides plenty of fodder for a long list of dissertation topics. … I found the book particularly timely given the increasing prevalence of racial, ethnic, and religious tensions throughout the world. It appears that Boccagni has his pulse on what is unfolding not only in Europe but beyond.” (Jeffrey S. Smith, Journal of Cultural Geography, February 18, 2019)“It is clearly more oriented to academic audience (students and scholars) than to policy makers. The book is indeed a welcomed contribution in the field of migration studies, where the focus on mobility and need to migrate tends to overlook the need of home and belonging.” (Anna Virkama, Nordic Journal of Migration Research NJMR, Vol. 9 (2), 2019)“In this engaging book, Paolo Boccagni asks about the meaning of home for people who have decided to leave their previous home and settle in a new place. … Boccagni’s book is a great and important read on the migration-home nexus. It will be of high interest to students and scholars alike who work on migration, home and transnationalism.” (Christine Barwick, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, January, 2018)“Paolo Boccagni introduces a new research agenda by studying migrants' search for home through homing and the migration-home nexus. … Thisbook is an important contribution to complex debates on home, migrant home-making, and homing. The introductory and concluding chapters help to underscore the relationships between place and the construction(s) of home. The book will be valuable to scholars looking to understand and heighten awareness on the home and issues of migrant homes.” (Charishma Ratnam, Emotion, Space and Society, July, 2017)“Migration and the Search for Home does much to broaden and enrich our understandings of the home-migration nexus. … this book provides a major contribution to research across home and migration studies. The book goes beyond mapping theoretical and empirical approaches to migrant homing, providing a useful methodological and conceptual toolkit that will further develop the home-migration nexus as a research field.” (Annabelle Wilkins, Migration Studies, 2017)

• Introduction .- 1. A new lens on the migration-home nexus .- 2. Researching migrants’ home .- 3. Migration and home over space .- 4. Migration and home over time .- 5. Migrants’ home as a political issue .- 6. Conclusion.