Housing and immigrants - consumer aspects of the meaning of the home

 

Housing research of recent years has approached consumption by focusing on the meaning and the use of the home and by focusing on housing preferences for different consumer groups. In parallel there has been research on immigrants' housing, however, much of this has focused on social problems of deprived areas. This paper combines the two approaches theoretically and raises questions of how a consumer-based approach to the question of immigrants' housing situation can enrich the field of housing research in general as well as the studies of immigrants' housing. The paper is thus primarily a theoretical paper combining approaches and raising questions for further empirical investigation, however it also includes examples from an empirical pilot study with a few qualitative interviews on the subject.