The significance of things: objects, emotions and cultural production in migrant women's return visits home

Article

Christou, A. and Janta, H. 2018. The significance of things: objects, emotions and cultural production in migrant women's return visits home. The Sociological Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038026118816906
TypeArticle
TitleThe significance of things: objects, emotions and cultural production in migrant women's return visits home
AuthorsChristou, A. and Janta, H.
Abstract

This paper draws on qualitative research in Basel, Switzerland with highly skilled migrant women from various European nationalities employed in a number of professional sectors. It seeks to contribute to the literatures on the sociologies of migration and the sociologies of everyday life by intersecting a conceptual link of ‘affective habitus’ to the phenomenology of material culture in unpacking how emotions triggered by objects shape settling practices in host societies. The analysis centres on pathways of cultural production as they unfold through memories, objects and experiential return visits. We find sociological depth in applying ‘affective habitus’ as the conceptual framing to examine how mediations of memory and emotions can extend understandings of how women migrants create agentic ways to settle in new host societies while making cultural accommodations. We theorise the conceptual terrain of ‘affective habitus’ through a phenomenological approach to gendered migrancy and cultural materiality in everyday life.

PublisherSage
JournalThe Sociological Review
ISSN0038-0261
Publication dates
Online06 Dec 2018
Publication process dates
Deposited06 Nov 2018
Accepted09 Oct 2018
Accepted author manuscript
Copyright Statement

Christou, Anastasia and Janta, Hania,The significance of things: objects, emotions and cultural production in migrant women's return visits home. The Sociological Review . (Journal Volume Number and Issue Number) pp. xx-xx. Copyright © 2018 The Author(s). Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1177/0038026118816906
LanguageEnglish
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