Implementación de la solución

The grand narrative of home is a very powerful narrative, because it appeals to people’s emotional emplacement as well as their sense of belonging and origin in this world (cf. Englund 2002a). Kwathu is about your roots, the place where you started your journey through life (cf. Clifford 1997). Therefore, whether you grew up there or not, whether you enjoyed the time you spent there or not, whether you still have immediate family there or not and wheth- er you visit the place often or not, does not matter that much. The appeal of roots, of being able to pinpoint a place on this earth where you belong, means that this place will always play a role in your life, regardless how you shape this role and how this shapes you. And although this can be problem- atic when the place you call home is suddenly solidified in directives, laws and policies as the place where you have to reside, it does not have to be the case. In fact, it seems as if having this place and solidifying it, at times, allows (former) street youth to keep moving in search of what they deem to be a better life. It somehow operates as a springboard, which youth (can) use for their jump into ‘the sea of uncertainty’: life in town (Bauman 2015 [2003]: 28). The majority of them, but not all, have spent most of their lives in town. And all of them envision continuing to reside in town, together with the wo/man of their dreams. Where they will construct – both in the literal and in the phil- osophical sense of the word – their own homes, for the most part depends on where and how they will find their partner and employment, but they are

380 ‘Bwerani, tipange zopusa’. Fields notes 18-05-2015. 381 Field notes 18-05-2015.

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all sure that it will be in town. They are open to emplacing themselves anew, whichever opportunity may present itself. But their aim is for their children to be emplaced in their home village as much as they themselves have (been) (cf. Englund 2002a, 2002b). They seem to hold that ‘firm’ roots are needed to deal with the fluidity of everyday life in our liquid modern times, in order to be able to construct one’s routes through life. These routes, although current- ly unknown, are imagined, shaped and directed by their roots and the search for money. And the latter plays an important role for the construction of their future home in more ways than one: they also need money to find a romantic partner to co-construct this home with.

I would argue that where Michael Jackson speaks of ‘being at home in the world,’ ‘becoming at home in the world’ seems more appropriate (1995). These youth have not ‘settled’ (yet) and every day they construct and build towards becoming at home in the city; their dream, but also a necessity con- sidering the situations that they find themselves in. They constantly build and look for ways to solidify what they construct, while at the same time painfully aware of the ‘frailty of human bonds’ and the perennial possibility that even those who are closest to you, can let you down (Bauman 2015 [2003]; cf. Geschiere 2003; Turnaturi 2007). In all this turmoil, (former) street boys and girls attempt to find a partner to build their future home with. In this way, they can at least feel like they have reached ‘the little islands of safety’ in the great fluid unknown (Bauman 2015 [2003]: 28).

In this chapter, I have traced an alternative storyline concerning (former) street youth’s current and future home-making practices. This story about love, money and their entanglement relates to the grand narrative in seeing the rural home as the place where their route through life began, but it does not conceptualize this as the place where they want to reside. Their efforts to maintain their presence in town hinge on finding money and a romantic partner to co-construct this home with.

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9

Summary & Conclusions

(Be)Coming Home

‘And whatever is man-made, men can unmake.’ (Bauman 2012 [2000]: 28)

In this final chapter, I end my story, but I also suggest several starting points for new stories. I first present a brief summary that reiterates the most im- portant elements of my arguments. Thereafter, I elaborate on the importance of recognizing the entanglement and co-existence of different narratives that can all be used to inspire actions. Focusing solely on ‘the grand narrative about home’ disadvantages economically marginalized, urban-based people because it can be used by others to challenge their presence in urban places. Using this narrative to come up with interventions and reform programmes can be considered counterproductive since it only adds to the hardships that (former) street youth have to overcome. Lastly, I make some suggestions for further inquiries and future research.

ReConstructions: A Summary

In this thesis, I have argued that focusing solely on the grand narrative of home as a basis for action, when it comes to interventions and reform pro- grammes directed towards (former) street youth, the intended beneficiaries are further disadvantaged because their presence in urban space becomes (even more) contested by locating their home firmly in a rural area. In the following paragraphs, I use my sub-questions to retrace how I arrived at this conclusion, driving my points home.

My first sub-question was what is ‘the grand narrative about home’ prevalent in Malawi? In chapter 1, I discussed a grand narrative that has come into being, in part because of Dr. Banda’s cultural policies. This narrative holds that home is in the rural village where one was born. For those who reside in the city, this means that they have to be successful because, due to the interlacement with other narratives, people hold that those in town are rich and educated whereas those in the village are backwards and poor. Although people know that in reality things are not this simple, these narratives remain widely used and adhered to. For (former) street youth, this means that ‘the

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grand narrative’, interlinked with other narratives, can be used to challenge their presence in urban places. Sometimes thereby confining them to rural space. The question how this narrative translated into policies and practices of organizations working with street youth in Blantyre then becomes rele- vant. As I demonstrated in chapter 4, the government and (I)NGOs such as the Samaritan Trust base their programmes and interventions on the grand narrative of home, which leads to attempts to send street children and youth (back) to their rural regions of origin. This, despite the fact that many of them were born in the city, hardly visited this rural home and – most importantly – do not wish to go back and/or reside there. I concluded that this effectively means that the interventions, although meant well, tend to do more harm than good, since they only further challenge the street youth’s presence in the urban sphere, contesting their home-making practices.

These home-making practices of (former) street youth are the focus of most of the other chapters. Chapter 2 was devoted to an analytical discussion of the importance of paying attention to home-making practices in the first place and the tensions that are engaged with through them. Chapter 3 con- cerned the methodology to discuss how I put what I highlighted in chapter 2 into practice while on fieldwork. Subsequently, I asked myself the question: In what ways do (former) street youth’s home-making practices correspond to and challenge ‘the grand narrative about home’? In chapter 5, I discussed how the policies that were described in chapter 4 tend to work out in practice and how they are experienced by the (former) street youth. Their home-mak- ing practices while residing at Samaritan are shaped by the knowledge that their stay is only temporary and they struggle with the negative conception, use and implications of reintegration.383 _{Home emerges as a place to escape} from when it comes to its dark sides, but also a place that one wants to con- sider as a place to escape to; if not in practice, then at least in narrative. This because the dark sides of home are also present in the institution where they temporarily reside.

In chapter 6, I demonstrated how (former) street youth sometimes appeal to the grand narrative, while sometimes also challenging it. This became clear by going on home visits with (former) street youth and experiencing the ef- fects of what I have called ‘liquid collisions’: the problems that ensue from attempts to solidify home in our liquid modern times. It appears that when

383 In chapters 4 and 5, the experiences of the girls come to the fore, whereas in chapters 6 and 7 I base my argument more on the experiences of the boys. This, as I explained in the introduc- tion, is because the girls have not yet been reintegrated.

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put under pressure, home is experienced and constructed as solid, adhering to the grand narrative and this mainly to have a starting point from which to venture onwards in life.

After describing this, I argued that it is important to look at other narratives that co-exist with the grand narrative and equally influence daily home-mak- ing practices. By asking (former) street youth about their future, I aimed to answer the last sub question: how do (former) street youth want to ‘become at home’ in the city?

In chapter 7, I shared these stories about (former) street youth’s future homes, hopes and dreams. Within these, love, money and their entanglement strong- ly came to the fore. To create their future home, all of them mentioned the desire and the need to have money so they could get married. And vice ver- sa: the desire and the need to get married, to have a partner to co-construct their home with. Although, when asked, most of the (former) street youth reiterate the grand narrative about their home being somewhere in a rural village, their future ideas and home-making practices are all geared towards firmly establishing themselves in town. They thus pragmatically adhere to the grand narrative by at times solidifying home in their rural village to have a starting point, roots, to create their routes from, and at other times using the fluidity of home to make a home-claim in an urban area. Liquid collisions often take place, yet are not always experienced as problematic by (former) street youth. The grand narrative is by no means rendered obsolete, it is just that they base their practices on many other narratives too. Accommodating and acknowledging this complexity makes their behaviours understandable as attempts to construct a home for themselves in liquid modern times of insecurity and economic destitution. It also shows that although NGOs may attempt to do good, their approaches can also complicate and obstruct street youth’s attempts to construct a home for themselves.