Exploring Place-Belongingness through Magic Machine Workshops in Refugee Communities

Upon displacement, it becomes challenging for refugees to build a sense of home in a new environment due to the traumatic experiences they have endured. To unpack factors that are important in developing a sense of home and belonging in refugee communities, we lean on the theoretical concept of ’place-belongingness’ - we did this by conducting 6 co-design workshops involving 15 refugee participants, via the ’Magic Machine’ workshop approach. From the workshops, we uncovered how cultural identity and memory, life stability and normalcy, security and privacy, resilience and ingenuity, and social connections are central to their sense of home. This research contributes to HCI by building on the theoretical concept of place-belongingness in the context of forced displacement, proposing design implications that address refugees’ needs for home from cultural and social dimensions, and design considerations for refugees’ domestic settings.