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My research can best be taken to have been exploratory. The topic of home is very broad and this leaves me with many more ideas for future inquiries into this domain. Taking into account that urbanization is likely to continue and that Malawi will bear the consequences of the floods for years to come, only adds to the urgency of the need for these inquiries. It would be interesting to do similar research in different places in Malawi – for example, in Lilongwe where Samaritan recently started a similar shelter, or Mzuzu, where no such

385 See also Paul Gilroy’s book Darker than Blue: on the moral economies of black Atlantic culture for interesting examples on how popular music (such as Bob Marley or 50 Cent) can be used in academic reflections on social life (2010).

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shelter exists – to build towards a more comparative perspective of life for street youth attempting to establish themselves in the city. Research on the same topic with different foci that were now beyond the scope of my research question, could also prove interesting. In the following paragraphs, I high- light a few of these lines of inquiry.

Firstly, I think it would be useful to do similar research to the one that I have conducted, but with an explicit focus on gender differences. Even though gender came to the fore in my stories, I was unable to compare whether the differences in responses and engagements of (former) street youth are based on differences in gender. I expect that this might be the case, but I have not found any explicit confirmations for this hunch. Considering the fact that many NGOs, Samaritan included, are currently struggling to come up with a more gender-sensitive approach, delving into this topic could be useful. A second suggestion would be that it could prove useful to turn my research into a longitudinal project: episodically going back to Blantyre and discussing the same topic with the same (former) street youth in order to see how and if their stories and daily practices change(d). I expect, for instance, that the boys’ connections with their rural homes will diminish over time, while they attempt to firmly settle in town. This could lead to trouble concerning land rights if they choose to return to places they consider as their home or land, when others no longer recognize those claims. Longitudinal research could also teach us more about challenges in negotiating access to urban places and it would provide us with interesting insights in to where former street youth end up: do they manage to obtain a stronger socio-economic position? Conclusions drawn based on this kind of research could then feed back into interventions and reform programmes in order to make these more compat- ible with the intended beneficiaries experiences and dreams.

Thirdly, it would prove interesting to look at home from a more materially based perspective. My focus has been on narrative and (the performativity of) stories and not so much on the more material aspects of life which, espe- cially in the Malawian context of destitution and deficits, doesn’t capture all aspects of life as experienced in lived reality. Due to my narrative approach the material side of home has remained somewhat underexposed. Future re- search using this perspective would be able to highlight more of the every- day struggles that (former) street youth experience, whereas my narrative ap- proach focused more on their ideas, hopes, dreams and reflections on these. A fourth line of inquiry would be to zoom in further on the element of social class. I have now looked at economically marginalized, urban-based people, but how does the grand narrative work for elite? Even though they seem to be

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less frequently confronted with it, this does not necessarily mean that they do not experience ‘liquid collisions’ or similar problems. It would be interesting to look into their handling of the difference between their daily urban experi- ence and their (sometimes fiercely claimed) rural heritage.

The fifth and final line of inquiry that I want to highlight here is to delve fur- ther into the connection between love and witchcraft. During my fieldwork, I frequently ran into comparisons between the two, probably since both of them can transmit diseases and contain ‘irrational elements’ that make them potentially dangerous. Boundaries can be crossed when stating that you are ‘in love’, which makes it dangerous in much the same way that witchcraft is often considered to be dangerous. Also, a lot of the effects of ‘being in love’ are explained in witchcraft idiom: surely, when you cross a gender boundary by doing the dishes because you love your wife and want to help her she must have put a spell on you or fed you specific herbs.386 _{Considering that for (for-} mer) street youth (but probably youth in general) searching for, finding and keeping love is an important aspect of their daily lives, looking further into this topic in connection with witchcraft might reveal interesting dynamics concerning processes of in- and exclusion in Malawian society.