Levin, Iris. “Meanings of House Materiality for Moroccan Migrants in Israel.” In Ethno-Architecture and the Politics of Migration (ed. Mirjana Lozanovska; Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2016): 115-30.
Extract
The chapter has discussed two case studies which were chosen because they are very from one another: one migrant house has a Moroccan room which is the epitome of Moroccan design, while the other has barely anything to indicate the ethnic identity of its owner. Yet, the migrants who live in these houses have created, each in their own way through the use of material cultures, the means to tell the story of Moroccan migration to Israel and gain the long-desired recognition of Moroccan culture in Israeli society. Through the understanding of these material cultures in the migrant house, it is possible to understand the ethno-architecture of the migrant experience at the scale of the house. The analysis of house materiality of these two Moroccan migrant homes in Israel has shown that, for them, there is a collective aesthetic and sense of belonging that situates them in a role of representing their culture and explaining it to others.
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