Anna Pechurina

Researching migrants’ homes

My research often involves asking questions about the meaning of material objects that people acquire, keep, and use in the course of everyday life and the connectedness of these meanings with a sense or feeing of being at home. Starting with my PhD thesis conducted at the University of Manchester in 2006-2010 I am particularly interested in the material dimension of home in relation to migratory and diasporic contexts and experiences. As a result of this research, I have been exploring connections between the emotional and affective dimension of homemaking and complex ways of belonging experienced in immigration. Here, I offer the idea of ‘diasporic objects’ as a way of capturing these complex processes and meanings.

related publications

• Pechurina, A. (2023). Scaling down migrant homemaking : Home possessions and the embodied experience of home. In Handbook on Home and Migration (pp. 377–387).
  Boccagni P. (Ed.) Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800882775.00042

• Pechurina, A. (2023). ‘Visiting Home’ as a Method and Experience: Researching Russian Migrants’ Homes in the UK. In: Boccagni, P., Bonfanti, S. (eds) Migration and Domestic Space. IMISCOE Research Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23125-4_6

• Golovina, K., Pechurina, A., Varshaver, E., Rocheva, A. (2023) House, Home, and Homemaking in Post-Soviet Migratory Contexts: Cases of Russia and Japan. In Handbook on Home and Migration (pp. 377–387). Boccagni P. (Ed.) Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800882775.00064

• Pechurina, A. (2023). Russian Objects and Russian Homes: A Sociological Reflection on Homes and Migration. In M. Yelenevskaya & E. Protassova (Eds.), Homemaking in the Russian-speaking Diaspora: Material Culture, Language and Identity (pp. 43–62). Edinburgh University Press.

Past Project: Creating a Home from home. russian communities in the UK (PhD thesis, University of manchester)

2006-2010

The thesis examined the organisation of the domestic life and material cultures of the homes of Russian immigrants to the UK. Drawing on 30 home based qualitative interviews and using some elements of ethnographic research, this study explored the ways in which both cultural identity and the feeling of belonging to a homeland are created and maintained in immigration. Thus, various aspects of domestic life such as home décor, material objects, and the practices surrounding cooking and mealtimes were used as a ‘way in’ to explore and broaden concepts related to home, migrant and diasporic belonging and cultural identity. The research was published as a book ‘Material Cultures, Migrations, and Identities’ (Palgrave 2015) that is framed around three key themes: homemaking and decorating practices, clothing and dressing practices, and food and cooking practices.