The Meaning of Home Part I
Why do humans live in homes?
As promised, this is the first in a three-part series responding to the deceptively simple question ‘what is home’? This question may well take on some immediate political importance if we end up, as many hope, with a referendum on the right to housing. The aim here is to bring together the latest academic research on the meaning of home and to set out a clear and (relatively) concise definition. I’ll also provide what I hope will be a useful reading list. As ever, if you would like a PDF of any of the readings mentioned, let me know. I came across the ideas that will be discussed over the next three weeks while writing some of my own pieces that deal with this topic, including this and this on the political economy of home in the PRS; this on tenants’ experiences of security in Ireland; and this more recent piece on home and Covid-19.
Before we get going, it is useful to ask why we need a concept of home. There is a school of thought which argues that ‘home’ is always culturally specific and that it is also tied up with social norms and ideologies. From this perspective, it can be argued that any attempt to provide a universal definition of home is (a) doomed to fail (because it varies in different cultures) and (b) is a power play, because imposing your understanding of home is always going to impose your norms. This is an interesting perspective, and it is certainly worth reflecting on how our own norms influence how we think about home. That said, from a social science perspective my view is that a universal definition of home is both possible and necessary. It is possible because home reflects some fundamental aspects of human nature. I return to this point below. It is necessary because without a definition of home we cannot critique the existing provision of home. For example, the statement ‘direct provision does not provide adequate housing’ is predicated on some idea what home should be. Having a universal conception of home can, in my view, greatly enhance our ability to critique existing housing and advance alternatives.
Now, back to the question of home and human nature. My argument here is that home is a function of the contradictory nature of human beings. Humans are social animals. We need each other to survive, quite literally. You could say we are the most social of animals, in that we like to create enormous social networks and forms of collective organisation. But humans have another, altogether different side; we also need to retreat from social relations. Spending time with other people is exhausting and can be stressful. This seems obvious, but it is quite weird when you compare it to other social animals. For the most part, social animals feel safer and relaxed in their social group. Humans, in contrast, seem to need to create refuges within which they can escape the stresses and strains of the wider social group or society.
The fact that humans need to retreat from social relations gives rise to home as a universal feature of human societies. In other words, the space to which we retreat to escape from our own social nature is ‘home’.
The philosopher who captured this best is Martin Heidegger with his concept of dwelling. To dwell, he argues us in his essay Building Dwelling Thinking, is more than merely to take shelter. It is also to retreat to a space where we can relax, rest, and recuperate. Somewhere we control the boundaries of and therefore can have privacy and feel safe (or safer than we would in public). Home is a kind of sanctuary we create from our own inherent sociality. Human beings, perhaps the most intensely social of all animals, construct special spaces – usually residential buildings – within which to carry out this activity of ‘dwelling’. These physical structures become our homes.
The nature of the physical structure varies – brick buildings, wooden cabins, caravans, shacks made out of refuse etc. But their purpose does not, which is why we can claim that there is universal thing called a ‘home’. This, in my view, is ultimately the strongest theoretical foundation for the claim that every human being should have a home and that any political-economic system that denies people that is fundamentally unjust. Of course, for that to be meaningful, we will need to be much more specific about just what a home is. That’s what next week’s issue will look at.
Events
As mentioned last week, the RTB are launching what they are calling 'one of the largest and most comprehensive studies of the rental sector ever conducted in Ireland' on the 14th of July. The video recordings from last week's Threshold/ESRI conference are now available online, you can watch Christine Whitehead here and the panel I spoke on here. And finally, for something a little different, there is a Rethinking Economics festival coming up soon that will be of interest to any one in to heterodox economics/political economy.
What I'm reading
A recently published article on the concept of home I am looking forward to reading, and Richard Waldron has a new article on housing and populism. Next month, Cian O'Callaghan of TCD Geography has a new edited book coming out on Urban Vacancy, take a look here.