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Current Sociology

Sociologist of the Month, July 2020

Please welcome our two Sociologists of the Month for July 2020, Kyohee Kim and Peer Smets (Department of Sociology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands). Their article for Current Sociology, Home experiences and homemaking practices of single Syrian refugees in an innovative housing project in Amsterdam is Free Access this month.

Kyohee Kim

Peer Smets

You co-authored the article “Home experiences and homemaking practices of single Syrian refugees in an innovative housing project in Amsterdam” for Current Sociology. How did you come to research this topic?

Kyohee Kim: Peer and I participated in a refugee conference in Amsterdam and ‘Startblok Riekerhaven’ was one of the visiting programs. So, we got the opportunity to visit ‘Startblok Riekerhaven’ in the early stage of its implementation. It was an interesting project that tried to solve global and local issues by mixing Dutch and refugee young adults in one housing program. I was curious about whether Dutch and refugee young adults interacted and engaged in the way the project had been designed for. The construction of the building was also interesting because it was built with container blocks and delivered within a year. Moreover, I was lucky that the ‘Startblok Riekerhaven’ was only 20 minutes by bike from my house, so I could visit the site often.

Peer Smets: Housing and home come together in a neighbourhood when the physical part of housing and the social part of home are combined. During the refugee crisis I came across a Syrian refugee who was very active in mobilizing people and lived in a house managed by the local neighbourhood community in Amsterdam. This was an alternative for governmental refugee housing. Later on, he became involved in different research projects such as reception areas, social media, voluntary work and access to the labour market at our university and elsewhere.

What do you see as the key findings of your article?

Kyohee Kim: This article shows how living conditions are differently experienced and interpreted based on the individuals’ social and emotional status. One interviewee, who complained about the housing quality and the social interaction of the project, said that he wouldn’t care whether he would find a decent job in the Netherlands. His reaction shows that a holistic approach, which includes physical, social, and emotional aspects, is required in housing programs. Moreover, the individuals’ competence and personality influence their home experiences and homemaking practices. Those who are fluent in English and have amicable personalities made a quicker adjustment in the new society. In the article, we described that “some Syrian residents had already nurtured a home for ‘here-and-now’ when they were ‘there-and-then”.

Peer Smets: This study highlights that the experiment of housing local young adults and young Syrian refugees together offers possibilities for inclusion, which is needed in this world where many groups do not interact and only live in their own bubble. Another key finding is that migration should need a mobility lens which includes the use of social media and goods that can be transported around the globe. Such a research about homemaking practices offer the opportunity to understand how people build bridges between different places, memories and times.

What do you see as the wider social implications of your research? How could things change in the future?

Kyohee Kim: As a Korean, I always think about Korean society. Korea is culturally more exclusive than the Netherlands. Providing housing for refugees in the center of the city is difficult to imagine in Korea, and the idea of having Korean young adults and refugees living together is not likely to be put into practice in the near future. Although we have pointed out the limitations of the project in the paper, I still believe that the Startblok Riekerhaven project is a wonderful example of an inclusive society. I hope many countries including Korea would emulate this project with the improved management schemes.

Peer Smets: I am involved in urban studies which indicates that my perspective is multi- disciplinary. I aim at bridging physical and social elements of the city. Today urban areas are threatened by globalization, and crises such as the financial crisis, the COVID-19 crisis and the climate change. Simultaneously we see that polarization increases and many population groups live in their own bubble. It is necessary to bridge social capital and share different experiences and viewpoints. Startblok Riekerhaven is a project that serves as an example in its ability to link groups and its contribution to inclusion. This project is now being replicated in other places in Amsterdam and elsewhere.

Interested in more? Have a look at the following suggestions from Kyohee Kim and Peer Smets, our Sociologists of the Month:

Kyohee Kim: A resident, who is also a filmmaker, made a film about Startblok Riekerhaven. This short documentary film presents a well-balanced perspective on the reality of the everyday lives in the Startblok. I recommend that you see this documentary “The boys next door” by Bobbie Fay Brandsen. It is going to be open to public on-line very soon!

Peer Smets: Reading material about housing and home can be found at the website HOMInG: The Home-Migration Nexus. Home as a Window on Migrant Belonging, Integration and Circulation. (https://homing.soc.unitn.it).

Interesting articles, among others, include:

Could you tell us more about your trajectory? How did you come to the field of sociology?

Kyohee Kim: I majored in urban planning and design for my undergraduate and graduate studies in Korea. I was interested in urban infrastructure and housing provision in developing countries. I also lived in Sri Lanka and Mongolia for four years to help acquire the first-hand experiences of the urban context in developing countries. I met my supervisor Peer Smets at a conference in 2014 where I presented my master’s thesis about slum villages in Sri Lanka. Peer was the chair of the session, and I approached him for a PhD research because I was impressed by his work and his personality. My original plan was to conduct research on urbanization processes in developing countries, but I changed it to the housing provision for Syrian refugees in European countries. At that time, the migration of Syrian refugees emerged as a major issue in European countries, and I was curious about how European countries would respond to the urgent housing demand with their cultural and financial capabilities. Under Peer’s supervision, I’ve come to consider both physical and social aspects of housing, which led me to focus on the topic of home.

Peer Smets: During my study of cultural and social anthropology I carried out my fieldwork concerning savings and credit associations in an agricultural trading center in Sangli, India. I was struck by the fact that such informal financial systems worked well there, whilst for a group of friends in the Netherlands, distrust dominated. I was very curious to find out how these savings and credit associations worked. My supervisor asked me to extend this to housing finance, which became my PhD project in low-income areas in Hyderabad, India. I came back to housing issues, because I lived as a squatter for a while. From my PhD onwards, I also became involved in urban habitat conditions in low-income neighborhoods in the Global North and South. From then onwards, I have published papers on urban segregation, housing, housing finance, government bureaucracy, community building, refugees, and social life in neighborhoods. More recently, my attention spread to include urban commons.