ABSTRACT
Labour migration constitutes a severe separation from a familiar environment and as such can trigger abject conditions for the migrant. Migration in the context of a foreign language puts in question both the subjectivity of migrants and their mother tongue. In the discourse on migration, the post-war labour migrant’s site of origin, the village, evolves as an improper site, cast as the opposite to the city of immigration. This chapter draws on the psychoanalytical theory of abjection (Julia Kristeva) and the anthropological theory of dirt (Mary Douglas), in addition to theories of identity and performativity (Judith Butler), to assist in understanding the migrant house as a site where separation, linguistic and cultural, is processed. Migrants develop intensive relationships with their houses due to the struggle to overcome the trauma of separation, and this becomes evident in the subject–object analysis between the migrant and the house. Abjection also appears in the negative perception of migrant houses by the receiving communities. The structuring of opposition between the village and the city of immigration, and the disavowal of migrant origins, as well as the crumbling states and rubble of houses in the villages, impact the migrant effort and negotiation of loss and gain.
