Home without family, family without home: Young migrants’ experiences of home and relationships in the city of Brussels

peer reviewedFamily and home are often considered inseparable, but the meaning of both of these terms are being re-evaluated in recent scholarship. Their re-evaluation often emerges in studies of migration, where traditional western ideas of family - as being nuclear and sharing the same physical space - and home - as being sedentary and synonymous with house - are disrupted and brought into question. The movement of people, by force or choice, provides a window into many of the fundamental aspects of relationships, belonging and home. This chapter builds on recent re-imaginings and new ways of thinking about home and family by investigating the home-making and family connections of a group of young first-generation migrants (aged 15-25) of different migratory statuses (undocumented, European citizens, refugees, unaccompanied minors) in the city of Brussels. By using data collected through fieldwork in traditionally non-home spaces - such as city streets, group housing, occupied buildings, and churches - this chapter reveals discoveries about the relationship between home and family, and how one may exist without the other. These relationships are illustrated through the ‘home orbit’ – a new way of picturing and understanding the components of home and how they relate to one another.INTEGRI