Flat as a Nodal Site in the Mobile Circuit
Anna Lim · 2025
In this chapter I address the dynamics of the flat as a distinct migrant space, which is made up of mobile migrants and yet has a permanent structure as a settlement with multiple advantages. In pursuit of common causes as care workers, the migrants attempt to form a cohesive community with an ideal of equality and homogeneity. However, migrants reposition themselves in a given social context and constantly negotiate the differences and identities of competing discourses within the flat. The practice of transfer is seen as the most important strategy by the migrants for dealing with these internal differences and conflicts in shifting situations. Thus, the disparate but mutually related themes of place attachment and disruption are necessarily integrated to confine the role of the flat to that of a key point of departure and arrival, serving as a nodal site in migrant mobility.