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Home-city Spaces of Care

Full project title: Home-city spaces of care: Networks of solidarity and belonging for refugees and asylum seekers in London and byond.

Project overview

The overall aim of this research is to understand and document experiences and strategies of urban homemaking and networks of care with people seeking asylum and refugees in London in the context of a hostile migration regime, entrenched racism and an ongoing cost-of-living ‘crisis'. It will work collaboratively with refugee and asylum-seeking participants and two arts-based refugee charities - Stories & Supper and Phosphoros Theatre - to produce knowledge and resources for researchers, activists, civic-organisations, and policymakers to challenge and mitigate the effects of the repressive migration system and foster solidarity and belonging. Conceptually, the project aims to develop and advance frameworks for understanding the meanings, practices and experiences of care in the city for people affected by displacement that move beyond Eurocentric conceptualisations and categories. Empirically, it will critically explore the role of collaborative and arts-based approaches for: i) fostering fuller understandings of (im)provisional urban dwelling and care; and ii) informing future interventions and policies to support refugees and people seeking asylum as part of a radically care-full ethics of welcome and solidarity. 

Aims

These aims shape the following objectives to:

  1. Co-develop creative interventions (through workshops and creative outputs) with a group of refugees and people seeking asylum to explore, map and document practices and experiences of home, care and solidarity in London.
  2. Co-develop targeted events with research participants and partners to share new knowledge and understandings of home-city spaces of care among refugees and people seeking asylum.
  3. Co-produce tangible resources including a printed and downloadable toolkit/pamphlet/zine for refugees and people seeking asylum, practitioners and policymakers; and a set of online resources for wider publics. 
  4. Build a strong network of researchers, activists, civic-organisations and creative practitioners to share knowledge and best practice as part of wider agenda to: a) challenge dominant narratives and policies around asylum/ refugee reception; b) critically explore and showcase how creative practice can support forced migrants and the communities in which they live; and c) bridge empirical/conceptual gaps between researchers, practitioners and public-policy professionals. 
  5. Disseminate findings widely within and beyond the academy throughout the project.

Partners and people

The project is a collaboration with Stories & Supper and Phosphoros Theatre.

Stories & Supper is based in the London borough of Waltham Forest. It uses storytelling and food-related activities and events with the threefold aims to: challenge prevailing stigmatising narratives surrounding refugees and migration in the UK; reduce isolation among marginalised refugees/asylum seekers; and create connections between refugees/asylum seekers and local communities. Central to its practice is the belief that refugees/asylum seekers are the experts on their own experiences of migration, as it seeks to foreground their stories both in workshops, which bring together refugees/asylum seekers and local residents who volunteer with the project, and at public facing events such as exhibitions, story cafes and festival performances. 

Phosphoros Theatre is a nationally touring theatre company and registered charity. Since 2015 they have worked with current and former unaccompanied asylum-seeking children to make socially engaged performance work for mainstream theatre. They deliver drama workshops to refugee groups, schools and professionals in London and beyond. 

Project Academic Mentor: Professor Cathy McIlwaine, Kings College London. 

Funded by a British Academy/Wolfson Fellowship (2024-2026)

Research design

  1. Creative and participatory workshops: A series of creative workshops with refugees and people seeking asylum to understand and document ‘home-city spaces of care’ in London. The workshops will involve creative activities (e.g. mapping, storytelling and walking) shaped around themes of home, belonging, solidarity and care in the city. 
  2. Weekend research residential: An intensive weekend of workshops in a residential centre outside London to develop activities and themes from the workshops and to determine resources to be taken forward. 
  3. Engagement/knowledge exchange activities with wider publics: Targeted participatory activities aimed at sharing knowledge with wider publics. This includes: 1) workshops with two local secondary schools, an allotment and a community centre in the London borough of Waltham Forest; 2) an event at the Migration Museum, London during Refugee Week 2025; 3) an event at Migration Matters Festival, Sheffield, 2025. 
  4. Resources for uncertain futures: This stage involves the development and production of tangible resources/toolkits to be shared widely with organisations, practitioners and policymakers.

Planned outputs and resources

  • Events/performances in local schools, museums, festivals, community organisations.
  • Academic publications including a book and two-three co-authored journal articles on methodological and conceptual aspects of the research. 
  • Tangible resources for schools/activists/policymakers/museums.
  • Media articles, local newspapers and regular project blog hosted on the Stories and Supper website.