A House of Homes: On the Multiscalarity and Ambivalence of Homemaking in a Multicultural Condominium in Italy

This chapter reflects on homemaking within a multicultural condominium called Hotel House, located in the small Italian town of Porto Recanati, where almost 2000 people live, 95% of them being migrants. The research was carried out through a lengthy participant observation within both the domestic and communal spaces of the condominium. Reflecting on the research work conducted in Hotel House, the chapter explores four main aspects: (a) the ethical and practical implications of entering other people’s homes, focusing the analysis on the field access and the researcher’s positionality; (b) the daily material and affective construction of multisensory atmospheres and landscapes in the domestic spaces of Hotel House; (c) the ambivalence of the practices of sociability and mutual aid that take place in the domestic spaces of Hotel House, with particular regard to Senegalese families; (d) the multiscalarity of homemaking and its potential emergence outside of the boundaries of domestic spaces.