ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses the multiple geographical representations of home in light of contemporary theorizations in human geography and the ethnographic analysis of the case of a Peruvian migrant in Madrid. It considers homes with a material culture approach, thus arguing that while people make and unmake homes across places and over their life course, in turn these special bounded places contribute to shape (exhibit or crash) their subjectivities. The chapter investigates home-making practices and emotions in conditions of hyper-mobility and of stuckness. It brings the experiences of highly skilled workers together with those of disadvantaged movers, such as asylum seekers, and moves across different settings, from hotel rooms to refugee camps to reception centres. The chapter also considers home as a threshold between private and public social life, where the variety of human subjectivities may be expressed or tampered.
