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In this article we discuss the lived, embodied experience of home-making in relation to identity and belonging through the example of a service-learning project conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic in a higher education setting in London, UK. We also explore the notion of belonging-not-belonging as a cultural, material and embodied construct, inspired by critical pedagogy. We draw on posthumanism, new materialism, intercultural studies, (auto-)ethnography and creative practice research as possible lines of flight in deconstructing the dichotomy between home and a 'foreign' territory-other-than-home that sits at the core of intercultural discourses. We present this project as a possible alternative discourse to (un)do more traditional considerations of home-making as a much more complex construct; in the encounter with new territories, humans and other-than-human artefacts, objects, machines and landscapes, we argue that home-making is a continuous, never-finished process that moves the learner and their teachers continuously. We aim to bring to the forefront new emerging considerations of intercultural studies at the intersection with interdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional discourses, breaking away from a more traditional and neoliberal view about what belonging means within the context of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last 60 years three forms of mobility have played a crucial role in the process of home-making across London – global migration, suburbanisation and gentrification. While these mobilities have been extensively analysed in terms of secular processes, the role of religion is becoming ever more evident and this paper seeks to contribute to this growing understanding by analysing the involvement by different Christian churches in the making of multiple homes across the metropolis. Various aspects of this home-making process are explored – the ways in which Anglican churches have responded to global migration and gentrification, as well as the challenges of increasing ethnic and ritual diversity for Methodist and Catholic congregations. Religion is intimately involved in diverse crossings of spatial and cultural boundaries and the construction of multiple dwellings (immediate and virtual). While global migration, suburbanisation and gentrification operate here in specific local contexts across a particular city, these modes of mobility operate around the globe and encourage comparison with American and Australian cities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is not possible to understand the full experience and meaning of homelessness without examining the relative meanings and experiences of home. Being at home is more than having adequate shelter and is as much about being placed in a particular social world. This paper explores ways in which processes of home-making and the goal of home may form part of a route to belonging for disadvantaged groups who share a marginalised place in their respective societies. To examine these ideas, data from empirical case studies from two contrasting contexts are presented: homeless young people in London and Dublin and informal dwellers in Colombia. These cross-disciplinary studies offer insights into how it is possible to move from positions of relative social exclusion towards the goal of home and hence of belonging and acceptance. Central to this is an understanding of people''s conceptions of home and the activities of home-making. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]