Anthropology has always devoted attention to materiality as a significant field of practice, central to the understanding of non- industrialized contexts. However, in regard to industrialized capitalist societies, only later have objects 'as visible parts of culture' (Douglas & Isherwood 1979) and their uses regained centrality, by the hand of a set of theoretical productions (Baudrillard 1968; Douglas & Isherwood 1979; Bourdieu 1979; Appadurai 1986; Miller 1987) that, without undermining the discussion of the impacts of capitalist production, claimed the urgency of rethinking contemporary materiality and its relationships with subjects. The importance of contemporary objects and consumption practices in generating culture is reestablished and their ability to do 'social and cultural work' through processes of differentiation, objectification and integration gains visibility, based on the following premises: a) things can be perceived as objectification devices, actively involved in processes of evaluation, positioning and mobility (Bourdieu 1979; Miller 1987); b) consumption can be acknowledged as a set of practices of acquisition, utilization and reutilization of things whose meanings are adjusted according to the subjects they meet and the contexts they enter (Douglas and Isherwood 1979; Kopytoff 1986; Miller 1987); c) far from being 'entities', objects participate and are responsible for the co-production of reality (Appadurai 1986; Miller 1987; Latour 1997); d) objects compose a familiar frame, a subtle setting for social practice. Since much of social behaviour is cued by expectations and determined by frames, they ensure appropriate behaviour without being open to challenge (Miller 2010); e) materiality constitutes a 'key-tool', i.e. a socialization device, for the definition of groups' particular identities and of their ways of seeing the world. Interacting with things can therefore be understood as a learning process of collective norms (Bourdieu 1972). By highlighting the potential of material culture and consumption to the analysis of contemporary collective life, these contributions established a background that has supported vast research work proving to be a solid theoretical option. Contemporary migration is also highly debated. In fact, migrations have been in the last years scrutinized by all disciplines, an intense debate which highlighted, among other major contributions, two major characteristics: its sharp visibility and intrinsic diversity. Authors such as Hannerz (1989), Appadurai (1990), Glick Schiller et al (1995), Portes (1999) or Vertovec (2007) amongst others are central, since they all point towards the necessity of thinking the multiple consequences of movement in terms of its impacts in cultural diversity, social reproduction and communal life. All this visibility does not however picture a world of 'fluidity and openness'. On the contrary, most migrations are based on inequality and discrimination, and are controlled and limited by states (Castles 2010). Awareness of complexity, diversity and context in contemporary migration does not stand for postmodern fragmentation. Contemporary migrations do present great diversity, but this diversity unfolds within increasingly universal relationships of power, many times translating the existence of global 'structures of common difference' (Wilk 1995). Migration will therefore be addressed through focusing on the specificities, complexities, contradictions and even unintended consequences of materiality and migration, while exposing the regularities and variations these movements and the relationships that support them might entail (Portes and DeWind 2004). The 'transnational turn' (Vertovec 2007) introduced significant changes in the debate, by way of shifting analysis from groups in specific locations to groups and their activities as they engage in cross-border, multi-local processes and practices without undermining the centrality of community, kinship, residence and other more or less stable forms of affiliation and belonging (Fortier 2000; Gardner 2002). Migration experiences are grounded on detail: who travels and who stays, when, how and in which circumstances; what historic, economic, political and cultural conditions mark the contexts and trajectories of migration and its impacts overtime on personal biographies; how are relationships and networks of belonging managed and displayed. While much scholarly work exists on migration, there is still little literature concerning its intersections with material culture and consumption. Yet, all migrations are embedded in materiality since they necessarily involve carrying, sending and receiving things, as well as expropriations and appropriations, desires and expectations regarding objects. As recent studies demonstrate (Burrell 2008; Fryman 2009; Rosales 2009) ethnographic insights into migrants' relationships and networks achieved through objects constitute productive conceptual lenses in migration studies. The impacts of migration on material experiences reaches further than attachments to objects from home; it can change peoples' perceptions of themselves, restructure their patterns of social interaction and alter the balance of relationships sustained with those left behind (Burrel 2008). If movement affects materiality because it implies the transference of objects and practices from one location to another, changing uses as well as users, and if different movements result in distinct materialities, since things act diversely depending on the routes taken and sites of departure and destination (Howes 1996), than what needs to be further explored is how the 'itineraries of people and things are mutually constitutive' (Basu & Coleman 2008).