Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, many Ukrainians have been displaced and sought refuge in other European countries, including the United Kingdom. Analyzing newspaper articles, public opinion polls, and emerging reports on the scheme, I argue that this policy draws on a particular conception of home, blurring the distinctions between private and public forms of hospitality towards certain kinds of migrants. In this moment of intensified public engagement with border politics, through a crisis displacing primarily women, this essay considers the “Homes for Ukraine” scheme as an overt manifestation of gendered domopolitics.
In comparing the response to Ukrainians with the response to other kinds of refugees, I argue that this hospitality is conditional and gendered, reinforcing hierarchical claims to migration and belonging. The question of who is an (un)welcome guest through processes of racialization, nationalism, and gendering becomes more entangled as the sophisticated filtration mechanisms of
bordering emerge within the home itself as an extension of the nation—and also the nation as an extension of the home.