Re-placed People, Re-visioned Landscapes: Asian Women Migrants and their Experience of Open Space

This research has been undertaken to provide an insight into interpretations of place in the lives of 20 Asian women migrants. Interviews combined visual and narrative techniques in order to investigate the participants ’ personal engagement with urban and rural landscapes: in their home country, on arrival in Britain, and in their current situation. The paper summarises the highly social focus of open space use in the home countries. It highlights the multi-sensory detail in memories of childhood play and recreation, and the shift to impoverished descriptions and reduced involvement with green space in Britain. This perceptual distance may be in part a result of disorientation and lack of confidence experienced at the time of arrival to Britain. Experience of green space and social recreational activities could prompt feelings of delight and nostalgia, and these seem to provide some connection between past and present environments