Migrant masculinities and domestic space: British home-making practices in Dubai

Existing research has tended to highlight the working lives, career trajectories and networking practices of skilled migrant men. In contrast, this article asserts the significance of domestic space in the constitution and narration of migrant masculinities, examining the role of domestic practices, objects, and relations. To do so, I explore the practices and narratives of British migrants in Dubai, drawing on ethnographic research, including interviews surrounding international relocation and domestic material culture, as well as participant-observation within homes. Migrants with a range of occupations, migration trajectories, residence biographies, and living arrangements are included in the discussion. Through the analysis it is demonstrated that the co-constitution of domesticity and masculinity in migrants’ lives is complex, involving geographies of absence and presence, mobility and emplacement, international careering and settlement. The heterogeneity of British men in Dubai challenges any singular representation of masculinity in this migration context and generates alternative meanings of home and belonging. The article concludes that further analysis of domestic material culture and home-making is necessary to complicate our understanding of the relationship between masculinities and home, for those who stay put as well as those who move.