Intersectional homemaking: Bridging the social and material inequities of refugees living in climate precarity

Abstract

Climate injustice is increasingly recognized by researchers as a factor in forced migration. Less attention has been given to the climate injustices experienced by refugees in resettlement contexts. Homemaking is a useful concept for examining refugee relationships to climate injustice because of its consideration of both the social and material world (i.e. the natural and built environment). However, it is limited in its capacity to examine the structural factors that contribute to the barriers and possibilities of homemaking in climate precarious contexts. This article joins intersectionality and homemaking to demonstrate how taken together this analytical frame can illuminate socio-material inequities experienced by refugees from pre-migration to resettlement in Canada. Intersectional homemaking is presented as a key conceptual framework for exploring home/homemaking, climate injustice, and refugees within the social work discipline.