At home 'outside': Young migrants aligning their ‘home orbits’ in the city of Brussels

Young people are the group on which society bestows its hopes and fears for the future. Under intense scrutiny, the weight of these hopes and fears rests heavily on young migrants in Europe who are watched for signs of non-integration, criminality and radicalization, . Paradoxically, in spite of this scrutiny, their positive contributions to society and the creative ways they direct their own adjustment to a new society are often overlooked. This ethnographic research aimed to explore these contributions and adjustments through the lens of ‘home’, where home is understood as an evolving process of the imagination that combines one’s relationships with one’s self, society, and the material world. In contrast to the concept of integration, home places the individual and their emotions at the center of the analysis and illuminates how various forces influence the home-making process. Comparing young migrants with different official migratory statuses offered insights into how outside forces impacted home-making while also showing how young migrants were able to subvert various obstacles and find creative ways to make home in the city of the Brussels. Through participant observation that explored home-making through public space, the arts, and language, the findings in this thesis reinforce the argument that mundane everyday routines are important foci of social science research. In this thesis, these routines of daily life were central to understanding the home-making of young migrants. Investigating the different dimensions that contribute to home, and the various factors such as societal norms, laws and policies, and individual agency that can impact it, led to a conceptualization of the ‘home orbit’. Home is depicted in this work as being at the center of an orbit, with different dimensions of home-making in constant motion around it and subject to various forces. This conceptual map and analytic tool illuminated how the superdiverse context of Brussels made fertile ground for both spaces of exclusion and the ability to find belonging by ‘not belonging’. Opening the data collection to include people of numerous national backgrounds and ethnic backgrounds as well as different migratory statuses allowed for findings that highlighted what young migrants have in common in their home making, as well as the strength of influence of various obstacles in this endeavor.INTEGRI