Migration as Anchorage: Ethnography of a Palestinian Family in London

Abstract

On a temporary visit to London, a Palestinian family found themselves unable to return to Gaza during Israel’s 2008 war on their city. Understanding their stay in London as an act of ‘anchoring’, the family opened a Palestinian café and sought to make their lives – as individuals, as a family and as a community – viable in the face of uncertainty. By following the stories of various family members as they struggled to recreate a sense of home, this moving ethnography introduces the concept of anchorage as a novel lens to understand migration, home and place, highlighting the fluidity, temporariness and serendipity of these experiences.