ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines how research on architecture, while peripheral to the fields of migration and transnational studies, has made a significant contribution and argues that foregrounding architecture can bring new insight into these fields. Much of the research on the built environments of labor migration are case study intensive and site specific, with richly detailed focus on migrant constructions. Case studies tend to be divided into research on the sites of departure – emigration – or the sites of arrival – immigration. By examining the architecture in places of emigration/homelands and immigrant cities – at the same time – this chapter aims to draw out the transnational spectrum of architectures of migration. This dual lens is focused on a concept of ‘twinness’ or ‘twinning’ and is drawn out in three parts: first, via pairs of houses to provide a comparison between homeland and city, and non-migrant housing; second, by charting the changes to the built environment over time as interwoven across homeland and immigrant city; and third, by identifying a dual scale within the built environment as it is intersected by migrant networks and migrant dwelling.
