Spiti (σπίτι) and mobility : Exploring the changing notions of home and family among women of the Greek speaking community in Finland

Sammanfattning

The present thesis explores the changing notions of home and family among women of the Greek speaking community in Finland. Through five semi- structured interviews I asked women to reflect on their current and previous thoughts on what constitutes home and family, seeking to identify the changes that have transpired over time and the factors that have contributed to these changes. This thesis employs strategies of intersectional feminist research and possesses an autoethnographic character, as I add to it elements from my own experience of migration. The thesis focuses on women who have moved from Greece to Finland during their adult lives and have lived in Finland for five years or longer. Drawing from the concepts of diaspora, mobility, and home, I investigate the participants’ lived experiences of migration, their ideas of family and the elements that constitute home for them. “Home” is characterized by ontological multiplicity, taking on as many different meanings as the definitions and forms of materiality people ascribe to it. The research shows that mobility has transformed the participants’ notions of home, which in most cases have been enriched, as nowadays the word home has taken new, additional meanings for them. The participants who have created their own families with children in Finland also appear to have changed notions of family. Furthermore, the experience of mobility generally proves to have improved the quality of family relationships with the participants’ families in Greece, sometimes in conjunction with other factors.