Migration as Anchorage

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 cafe 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.