‘At least they are welcome in my home!’ Contentious hospitality in home accommodation of asylum seekers in Finland

Abstract

This article discusses hospitality towards asylum seekers as a political and contentious act. Accommodating asylum seekers in local homes is one of the pro-asylum mobilisations that emerged across Europe following the ‘summer of migration’. Based on interviews with local hosts in Finland, this article demonstrates that offering accommodation is often motivated by an explicit mistrust in state asylum policies and a will to make a statement in support of the right to asylum. Home accommodation challenges the norm of housing asylum seekers in reception centres, isolated from the rest of society. Thus, it provides valuable social and spatial resources in the struggle for asylum. Departing from the understanding that questions of asylum and home are inherently political, and following feminist citizenship theorisation that connects the domestic with the political, this article and the concept contentious hospitality contribute to challenging the discursive division between public and private.