Digital reconstructions of home-making during shuttle refuge: Ukrainian refugees’ experiences in Germany

Abstract

This article addresses how transient international refugees create new digital reconstructions of home-making when physically and mentally shuttling between two or more places of residence. Worldwide crises force millions of international refugees to adapt to new ways of constant remigration between their temporary places of residence and their home country. Instead of settling in a new place of residence, many international refugees often have difficulties feeling at home where they do not want to be. This article focuses on current refugees from Ukraine in Europe who shuttle between their homeland and their host country. The actual process of the refugees’ constant balancing between physically and mentally leaving and arriving at their home and host countries is coined ‘shuttle refuge’ in this article. It emphasizes the loss of a permanent home during refuge and portrays the necessity of digital reconstructions of home-making with friends and family via communication media due to the unavailability of a constant physical home. After addressing the legal circumstances that currently contribute to the ongoing state of temporariness, this article illustrates practices and effects of the shuttle refugee through a group interview with six recent Ukrainian refugees in Germany at the beginning of the year 2023 to shed light on the interviewees’ adaption to a new cultural environment and their efforts in digital home-making practices with their families and friends.