PhD thesis final - Royal Holloway, University of London

Chapter 2- Conceptual frameworkalso Blunt and Varley 2004), but also reveals the complexities, conflicts andcompromises involved in creating a home (Daniels, cited in Blunt and Dowling2006:23). Concerning the multi-scalar understanding of home, the discussion ofmigrants‘ practices in forging a sense of being at home should also include thoseexperiences that take place in other spatial settings in which their everyday lives arebased. In this regard, my analysis will examine Taiwanese expatriates‘ everyday living,including domestic lives, work and leisure activities, and consider how the materialityof their living spaces affects their emotional experiences of belonging. Drawing uponboth the private and public domains of migrants‘ daily lives, my investigation adds toexisting understanding of material culture in migrants‘ practices to constitute belongingin the domestic space as well as the private domain. My discussion also addresses themateriality that helps to create a virtual form of space of belonging (i.e. in Cyberspace),with special attention paid to the transnational media and telecommunicationstechnology; in doing so, my research can also add to the literature on spaces of publicbelonging.A public space can be potential space of belonging for migrants partially because itsphysical forms or built components of landscapes, such as the housing style (Blunt andDowling 2006; Westwood and Phizacklea 2000) and surroundings (e.g. theinfrastructure and amenities) (for example, see Beaverstock 2002; Gordon 2008) canmake migrants feel a sense of transnational similarity and familiarity. What is lessdiscussed in the literature is the multiplicity of materiality of public spaces that migrantsexperience in their everyday lives, such as objects deployed and used as integral parts ofthe built spatial structures. This deficiency in the literature will also be examined in thisresearch, with special attention paid to the material culture which makes up thelandscape of vision, sound, smell and tastes that migrants experience in workplace and45