Feeling good or at home?

Abstract

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the Netherlands, this thesis studies the relation between the homemaking processes of Latin-American female migrants in the Netherlands and their social relations. It analyzes the homemaking processes of Latin American women in the Netherlands in relation to past and present experiences of the women and their agency in this process. This study contributes to a better understanding of the key concepts of home and homemaking from an ethnographic point of view and contributes to the discussion about the relation between homemaking and social relations. While many Latin-American women think of home as feeling good, this thesis shows that the concepts of home and homemaking are much more complicated than it looks like at first sight and that there is a difference between feeling good in a ‘new’ country and feeling home. By using the terms of ‘feeling good’ and ‘feeling home’, this thesis shows the different ways in which different social relations influence homemaking.