PhD thesis final - Royal Holloway, University of London

Chapter 3- Research contexts and methodologiesuseful and often provided insight through their interactions with one another. This washelpful in permitting me to get into their lives in a relatively short time, especially in thebeginning of my fieldwork when I did not have much knowledge about the reality ofTaiwanese expatriates‘ living and working lives in China. Moreover, when interviewingcouples together, I was impressed that the interview also enabled couples to reflect ontheir feelings of living in China as well as share with each other their ideas of home(Valentine 1999). From observing their interactions in the discussion, I also sensed thathusbands were often more silent when talking about the home-making practices and hadto confirm with or consult their wives on a number of occasions. This observationpermitted some insight into household relationships and the gender dynamics in thehome-making practices. However, as Valentine‘s (1999) study indicates, joint interviewsmay make one person silent in the discussions, I often paid attention to my interviewees'reactions by perceiving the body language or facial expression when their spouse wasspeaking in order to identify if he/she agreed with what was being said.Since I intended to understand Taiwanese expatriate skilled workers‘ practicessurrounding the construction of belonging in different spatial settings, my interviewsprobed into the process of their migration and relocation to China, as well as into theirdaily lived practices and experiences around place- and home-making activities whichmade them feel at home in the domestic space, workplace and leisure space. Inparticular, I paid special attention to their feelings and emotional engagement inscribedin those spatial practices and their perceptions toward those spatial settings. Also,through interviews, I aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of the ways in which myinformants perceived the idea of home as well as their articulations of different forms ofemotional status regarding the feeling of being at home (Appendix II).80