‘Home is Always Home’. (Former) Street youth in Blantyre, Malawi, and the fluidity of constructing home
This book is based on Tanja Hendriks' Master's thesis ‘Home is always home’. (Former) Street Youth in Blantyre, Malawi, and the Fluidity of Constructing Home, winner of the 2016 African Thesis Award. With this annual award for Master students the ASCL encourages student research and writing on Africa and promotes the study of African cultures and societies.
The book departs from the idea that (the search for) home is an integral part of the human condition. For many Malawians, ‘home’ is strongly associated with rural areas and one’s (supposedly rural) place of birth. Despite the fact that this grand narrative renders (former) street youth ‘homeless’, they adhere to it, while at times also contesting it. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Blantyre, the author argues for a conceptualization of ‘home’ as a fluid field of tensions (re)created in the everyday. As such, home leaves space for people’s life roots and routes.
This book has been published as volume 69 of the African Studies Collection.
About the author(s) / editor(s)
Tanja Dorothé Hendriks (1990) holds a Bachelor’s degree in anthropology and a Master’s degree in International Development Studies (University of Amsterdam). She also completed the Research Master in African Studies at the African Studies Centre Leiden (Leiden University), which resulted in the book ‘Home is Always Home’ (Former) Street Youth in Blantyre, Malawi, and the Fluidity of Constructing Home. She currently works at the African Studies Centre Leiden as a junior researcher.
How to order
This book can be ordered from the ASCL webshop.
Price: € 15,-
ISBN: 978-90-5448-161-4
Posted on 7 June 2017, last modified on 22 June 2017