Following the argument of an ‘unknown’ place becoming familiar from the physical/ spatial dimension, migrants face the question of Otherness, which involves issues of membership (citizenship) and ownership, reflected in sociocultural contexts (see details in section 6.2). The idea of being ‘at home’, as Dovey argues, is where “one can feel in control and free from others (1985:46) “. However, to experience home practices is a process of understanding a dialectic and tension under an alien world where others make the rules. This process is essentially dialectic of boundary negotiation (Somerville, 1997: 234)
A boundary is seen as a mark of difference in physical, national, political, racial, linguistic, religious, as well as in symbolic terms. Facing such issues of classification by delineation of boundary, a straightforward contradiction arises between locals and new comers, insiders and outsiders, how people are defined as ‘locals’ (Jess and Massey, 1995:150) and who defines them (1995:162). This echoes another question: “how long do you have to be in a place to be counted as a local?” (1995: 165). Yet another question is which are temporary and permanent boundaries. As such, a boundary also has fluid and dynamic significance; Haq (2006:2) suggests, a boundary may also be “a signal for opportunity” and could be seen as “potentially permeable, a crossing point, if conditions are conducive”, although it may also be ”a place of risk, and potential danger”. This view mirrors Sibley’s (1995:32) description where crossing boundaries could offer anxious moments as one enters a foreign space that is under others’ control; it could also be an exciting adventure of transgression. Nast and Pile (1998: 410) also have a similar viewpoint that “crossing boundaries can be liberating and confining and both at the same time”. Therefore, boundaries, to a certain degree, or in some situations may also provide security and comfort, as Hall (1995) mentions contact zones of cultures may host various groups and offer them a space to establish a ‘co-presence’. The diasporas or displaced groups with their original cultures come into the contact zones and negotiate with other groups (Hall, 1995: 193).
“new typed home”, supposing they are completely inconsistent (Wang and Wong, 2007: 184). However, as Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton (1981) have noted, home is “a veritable storehouse of identity symbols” that maintains place identity (cited in Cuba and Hummon, 1993a:550). Cuba and Hummon (1993a) further argue that those domestic things serving as personal and social symbols can be mobile and used ritually to ”transform a new house into an old home”. While on the move, this personalisation of new abodes enables the construction of a coherent sense of personal place identity (550). This shows how migrants retain a continuous way of life, which ties with their past through rituals and habitus in their mobility, to maintain their social order.
A theory of home and everyday life is territorialisation, as Wise reveals; it may facilitate a better explanation of how cultures shift, transform and resist. He claims that the process of home-making is a cultural one. The significance of milieus and territories is cultural, so that particular representation of an object or space is divergently influenced because of culture. Although cultures can share objects and information, they display these differently, such as when same ingredients produce different food. Therefore, one culture varies from another by territorialising in diverse ways (2000: 299-300). He further explains that “we cultivate habits, they are encultured” (2000:303), such as ways of acting, moving, gestures, interaction with materials, surroundings, technologies, which are all cultural. Wise also argues that “our habits are not necessarily our own” and “most are created through continuous interaction with the external world”. People thus are a result of their own reactions to the external world and disciplined through habit (Foucault, 1977). In addition, Wise claims that the habits, rituals, practices, ways of thinking and costumes may be closely attached to people travelling to new places, worlds or territories (2000:306). As King (1995: 28) highlights “habitus gives people a sense of their place in the world, a sense which is carried with them and refashioned in the new context when they migrate”.
It echoes the notion of Bourdieu (1984) about “habitus” which could be a range of inherited and learned characteristics that shape ways of acting, dispositions, styles of physical movement, cultural tastes and judgements. Bourdieu (1992: 53) suggests habitus is “a system of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures
predisposed to function as structuring structures”. Furthermore, it is “an open system of dispositions that is constantly subjected to experiences, and therefore constantly affected by them in a way that either reinforces or modifies its structures” (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 133). As such, it is also the production and reproduction of relationships amongst individuals, society, culture and environments.
Moreover, religion is often tied to culture, therefore, engaging in religious practice is also a way of practicing culture. Case of Shan is one of the examples. Shan culture is closely linked to ritual practices of Theravada Buddhism and follows the Buddhist calendar. Building on some recent research on forced migration and religion, Horstmann and Jung (2015) argue that “religion is more than just a relief from suffering or a source of hope…., it can be an integral part of refugees’ public space making” and they believe it is “a lens for understanding the kinetics of homemaking in often hostile environments” and also “a tool with which displaced people rebuild a sense of homeland, belonging” (1). Meanwhile, refugees are able to “retake control over their lives” to shape spaces while “placing themselves in and outside of the international regime of refugee protection” (2). By studying Buddhist Karen refugees in Mae Sot valley in Thailand, Rangkla (2013) reveals how Buddhist webs of connections have, spiritually and materially, created a space for Karen refugees to maintain their continuity in religious practice, to (re)construct locality and to create a sense of place and belonging in a new social environment. The refugees also re-emplace themselves through celebratory occasions. Rangkla’s research mirrors Dudley’s (2011) finding at Karenni refugee camp in Thailand. Karenni refugees employ different methods and practices to make their camp life more bearable and habitual. Dudley reveals that through acts of material culture and processes of production and consumption (i.e. food and textiles) Karenni refugees “repeatedly perform the past, continually (re-)creating and sensorially (re-)experiencing it in the present” (751-752). Those experiences maintain continuity with their past and produce a feeling of being at home in the camps.