Homemaking as sensemaking: Existence, place, and belonging among returning youth from the Levantine diasporas

Abstract

<p>As youth from the Levantine diasporas resettle in what is nominally their homeland, they compose narratives of home at the intersection of finding their place and the constant movement of their existence. Their homemaking efforts delineate places of belonging where these youth position themselves in a double relative location: the intersubjective (in relation to others) and the subjective (in relation to their projected life trajectory). While dwelling in places and wider societal landscapes, these relative locations are continually moving as the youth negotiate the meaning of their presence in the here-and-now, both diachronically (along the perceived direction of their life trajectory) and synchronically (toward others). This conceptualization questions the centrality of identity in the debates on migration and diasporas, and it makes visible how belonging emerges from the existential process of making sense of one's location between the self and others. [diaspora, home, emplacement, displacement, belonging, life trajectory, narrative, Lebanon, Canada].</p>