Making homes here and away: Korean German nurses and practices of diasporic belonging

ABSTRACT

Drawing on oral histories of first generation Korean guestworker women who were nurses in Germany, this article addresses the little-discussed Korean guestworker women and their everyday constructions of belonging. This article examines how everyday experiences of embodied belonging act as critical resources for the making of home and for the formation of conceptions of home, identity, and belonging. By looking at these practices as resources, this article highlights the important ways that these Korean women made homes in new places, and offers up a different account of difference and diaspora that challenges integration and assimilation as the only means through which diasporic peoples can live in Germany.

KEYWORDS:

• Diaspora
• homemaking
• translocality
• migration
• urban multiculture

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr. Helen Kim is a Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Leeds. Her book, Making Diaspora in a Global City: South Asian Youth Cultures in London was published by Routledge in 2015. Her research and teaching interests include the areas of race and racialization, diaspora, queer cultures, and the urban.

ORCID

Helen Kim http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1650-8418

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the University of East London under the Early Career Research Grant.