The Hidden Boundaries of Everyday Places: Migrant Women, Homeplace and the Spatial Practices of a Small Swedish Town

Abstract

This article presents a project that focuses on the multiple ways recently arrived migrant women position themselves, and are positioned, in relation to an urban community in a medium-sized town in central Sweden. The research draws on theories of place and social relationships in order to analyse how accessibility of place is structured and explores the tensions in the production of places. Special attention is paid to variations in narratives collected from participants about living in the town and to how the narratives influence the migrants’ experiences of everyday places. The results shed light on the importance of social boundaries and of weak hegemonic relationships in generating a sense of homeplace, the ways our informants construct places in their everyday lives, and actions – or inactions – that result from ways that everyday places are constructed