Homemaking and Places of Restoration: Belonging within and Beyond Places assigned to Syrian Refugees in the Netherlands

Abstract

Refugees in the Netherlands are prioritized and given assistance with housing, although they have no say in where this housing is located. In this paper, we explore how recently arrived Syrian refugees cope with these regulatory practices by the national government and how their process of homemaking evolves in the new environments assigned to them. The article draws on qualitative data, including sedentary and walk-along interviews and pictures taken by recently arrived Syrian refugees in different Dutch cities. It shows how daily routines are vital for the social incorporation of refugees and how specific places can harm, but also matter, for processes of homemaking. Refugees actively find “places of restoration”—both within their new locality and beyond—and it is both the claim to belong as well as the claim to exert control over their own lives that plays an important role in newly arrived Syrians’ homemaking processes.