Unravelling Uncertainty After Displacement: Syrian and Eritrean Women's Homemaking Processes in The Netherlands

Abstract Using a ‘homemaking’ rather than an ‘integration’ lens to study people's negotiations of space in new environments, we study post‐displacement homemaking processes of Syrian and Eritrean women in the Netherlands. Fleeing from different ordeals, these women arrived during the refugee‐protection crisis of 2015 and work to (re)arrange their social relations, pursue new livelihoods and meet various other goals important for feeling at home. Based on life‐history interviews, observations, photo‐journaling exercises, and mapping exercises held with 45 Syrian and Eritrean women in the Netherlands, we distinguish five key homemaking domains through which women negotiate home post‐displacement: legal‐foundational, economic, social, cultural‐religious and mental. Each domain contains significant obstacles to homemaking and various ways in which women navigate them. While the women are active agents who mostly successfully negotiate new homes, we find that Dutch immigration and integration policies, together with changed social relations, work to produce severe uncertainty along the way.