Global lives, local homes: An ethnography on how expatriates construct a place of home in Nairobi, Kenya

Abstract

In this thesis, I contribute to a better understanding of the process of how western expatriates construct a place of home in Nairobi. I do this through an in-depth study of western mobile elites who migrated to the Kenyan capital. I describe the friction between expatriate ideals and the structures of the Kenyan capital, and how this friction gives shape to a specific livelihood; the Nairobian expat bubble. Furthermore, I describe both successful and unsuccessful attempts to construct a home, linking Pierre Bourdieu s notion of habitus to the process expatriates go through.