Homestay Accommodation for Refugees (in Europe). A Literature Review

Abstract

In the aftermath of the rapidly increasing number of refugees arriving in Europe following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, nonprofit organizations, private companies, and also public institutions have promoted homestay initiatives: That is, local households hosting refugees. In order to reflect on the political issues that homestay accommodation for refugees raises, the article charts and synthesizes the available research on homestay produced in 75 works written in English, French, German, and Italian, and with a particular focus on the European context. Most of those texts were published in the second half of the 2010s and focused on the homestay initiatives that developed in the context of the so-called 2015 “refugee crisis.” We analyzed this material by focusing on three different levels: First, hospitality as an inter-individual relationship within the domestic sphere (micro level); second, refugee homestay as diverse accommodation arrangements, implemented by informal groups, nonprofit organizations, and public institutions (meso level); and, third, the (non-) contentious dimension of homestay accommodation (macrolevel). The review also identifies theoretical, methodological, and empirical perspectives for future studies on homestay. We call for more attention to be given to the intersectional inequalities and power relations between hosts and guests; to the life trajectories of refugees; and to the interplay between homestay initiatives and political contexts. We argue that homestay is an exemplary case to reflect on the ongoing evolution of refugee support towards solidarity practices that ambivalently interact with border regimes.