Meaning of Home
Introduction:
Home has been defined differently by different authors, who have contributed to the fields of family life discussion and other social sciences. The example piece of work that has been chosen for analysis as part of this assignment is the article of Peter Somerville that discusses homelessness as a social problem (Somerville).
The interest in this article is that the author has attributed the concept of home, to a structure that provides roof and shelter to a person. At the same time, the author has recognized that the definition of home has been greatly debated on, in the literature of all the cultures.
He acknowledges the fact that the meaning of homelessness might not be confined only to the fact that the person, who is affected, does not have a place to live. The meaning of this word can be rather political and philosophical, concealed in the matter of speaking.
The concept of home is discussed through the eyeholes of various personalities such as refugees, college students, elderly people and newlyweds. The feeling which they associate with the word ‘home’ has been discussed and the various factors which causes them to change their perspective of the word home, is analyzed.
Discussion:
The Multidimensionality in the Meaning:
A very well-known phrase in the definition of home is that “home is where the heart is”, and this tells about the depth of the concept and the vastness of this word, which is otherwise a very simple word. There are several dimensions that can be drawn on the concept of defining home.
The emotional and essential dimension of the concept is often disregarded, and the authors in their discussions do not talk about this side of the story and confine the concept to a very material object. Still there have been contributions from authors that involve views of the people who believe that the essential dimension of the home is more important to discuss when talking about the concept of family and relationships.
But it is not always the heart is where the home is. Farid, who is an Iranian- American doing business in the United States is an undocumented person himself. He fears for his safety if he is deported back to his home country since he is not wanted there. Similarly, there are many such instances where people generally do not like to go back to their homes (Orner, Peter, and Tom Andes).
It is important that the word “home” is argued upon because it has been brought up by the author of the example article through which several different kinds of issues associated with the subject are brought under discussion. If the meaning of the problem is not understood properly, then it can be very hard to overcome this trouble.
Reason for Debating the Meaning:
The purpose of bringing up a debate over the matter, that home does not mean only the structure of bricks that gives shelter to a group of people, is to understand the underlying assumptions that are seldom surfaced and to gauge to what extent is the meaning of homeless is associable to the homeless person actually being rootless and not associated with a group of people with whom he or she has a bond of blood.
The meaning of home can be much more comprehensive than this. Home can be considered as a psychological affiliation with a place and with some people. The subject associates this affiliation as their closest bond rather than any other place or people.
The Essence of Home:
The sense of belongingness that comes in the mind of a person is the actual thing that makes a place or group of people, a home to him or her. This would mean that home is, in fact, an institution that is not bound by the physical presence of structure but has a functioning mechanism and a set of rules that the member of this institution has to fulfill. Failure in compliance with these rules can make that person undesirable as a house-hold member for the other people.
Complexity in the Understanding of Home:
Sixsmith has understood the meaning of home as a rather complex structure that actually has a soul (Sixsmith). Without the soul, the structure is not indifferent from any other place that is physically approachable. He combines the meaning of home with a person’s experiences that he or she has had with the environment.
This study revealed that the people have had better and more selfless experiences with the people they consider close to them and bonded by blood. This experience made them believe that the group of people that they associate with home is close because of the positive environmental experiences that they give them.
But it is clearly known that home provides a sense of security to the dwellers. As in the case of Diana, she helped to rebuild the Gulf Coast after the Hurricane Katrina. Diana, a Latino worker, worked alongside several other Latino workers. After the Gulf was rebuilt, she was imprisoned for not having proper documents. The government showed no gratitude to the thousands of Latino workers for helping in rebuilding the Gulf Coast. It can be reasonably guessed that had they been in their home country, they would not have been the subject of such heinous acts (Orner, Peter, and Tom Andes).
The Interactionism View of Home:
The social sciences researchers that believe in the philosophy of interactionism consider home as a set of relationships that a person develops without having much control over it. This means that where a person has the liberty to their friends, choosing one’s parents and family members is something one cannot control (Despres).
Therefore, nature’s act is admitted wholeheartedly by the members of the institution. Such authors view the home as a set of relationships that include caretakers, the obedient and the dependents with these relationships changing over the period of time.
This has been elaborated that when children are young, they are dependent on their caretaking parents. As the time progresses the positions keep getting swapped with obedience remaining constant, as the younger people related by blood are obedient to their elders no matter how old they grow.
Understanding of Home with Age Changes:
The discussion of (Oswald & Wahl) over the definition of home is of great value in this regard as they elaborate the changes brought in the meaning of home with the progressing age. They explain that as a person grows older and older, the meaning of home that is an abstract concept becomes more and more subjective from objective.
A person as a child associates home as a place where he or she feels protected and where he or she gets treated with the desirable things such as food and recreation. Once out of that, the child is more restless.
As he or she grows a bit older, the outside world, away from family and house is the place for him or her to indulge in adventure, and the home is the safety net that will take him or her back whenever they return. The image of home thus changes from a rather objective (place of food and shelter) to a rather subjective (an unbreakable affiliation) for that child.
A college student becomes more independent during the phase of his/her college life. Caroline Finnegan says that it was difficult to make the transition from the college environment to the home environment. She calls it ‘traumatic’. She found it difficult because she found it hard to be in the control of her parents after being independent for so long. She also explains that parents fail to see the new maturity in their kids after their college phase. This causes them to pamper their kids with a lot conditions and school child like treatment (Finnegan).
As the time passes and the child becomes a parent or an independent person, there are certain dependents that he or she has to look after. At this time, the meaning of home becomes even more subjective, making the person believe that he or she has an obligation to provide for the dependents. Dependents are the people who are considered as family members.
This is the time when home becomes a motivational factor, for which the person struggles hard in order to provide the necessary finances and social needs. Later, in old age, the person views the home as a completely subjective phenomenon with which he or she associates the entire life that they have spent. They claim that the home has been a by-product or a result of their entire life’s work.
The events that unfolded in their lives and the actions that they took in reaction to these events constituted a structure and the people living inside that structure. Hence, as the roles of a person change so does the understanding and the interpretation of home for that person.
Gender and Understanding of Home:
The image of a home for a person is the institution that according to (Saunders), has been constituted as a result of marriage between two people and for males it is a part of their lives for which they feel responsible for and seek comfort from, whereas for females it is the part of their lives that they give the most importance to and seek respectful treatment.
The sense of ownership to a group of people bound in certain relationships with each other constitutes the complete picture of home. (Marcus) joins the two concepts that are otherwise greatly confused with each other, house and home and concludes that these two concepts are actually mirror reflections of each other.
He states on the ground that the actions that a person does give a reflection about the kind of soul that the person has. Similarly, home is the soul of the house and the extent to which the members of the association that the author calls as a home enjoy positive relationships with each other. This strengthens or weakens the presentation of the association which is the house.
Homelessness and Rootlessness:
(Neale) considers that where homelessness is a condition, in which a person does not have a place to function as his or her hideout and to provide him or her with shelter. The author confines the meaning of homelessness strictly to the physical structure that gives shelter and protects a person, several other authors and social sciences researchers like (Dumbleton) disagree that the meaning of homelessness signifies that the person does not have a permanent affiliation with an institution. This means that the person who is homeless actually does not have a group of people to take care of him or her and vice versa, and an idea that he or she can actually own.
Conclusion:
The claim of this paper that the meaning of home is vaster than is understood in everyday life, the authors and literature mean that there are several different dimensions of the meaning of home.
A person who is wealthy and possesses everything that he or she might need to live a contented life, can even be homeless in way if he or she misses members of the institution home with whom he or she can affiliate and recognize themselves.
Hence, as the literature supports, the physical existence of a structure is just one dimension of the meaning of home, and it is also not the most important one at that. What is more important is the psychological contract that a person has with a group of people who may be living all at one place or in a physically scattered condition.
This contract is based on the fact that the members of the contract are related to each other in blood or in a bond so strong that goes back to the base and question of their existence. For example, the foster parent who has had adopted a child at the young age would generate a feeling of home with each other.
Man being a social animal, interdependence is something that cannot be placed aside and in order for a home to be complete, the interdependent have to fulfill each other’s requirements.
The children, who cannot give anything to their parents in material form, still provide them with a motive for them to carry out the economic and social activities that every person performs.
The literature is hence found to have supported the argument that the concept of home cannot be confined to a one dimensional definition and that there is an enormous subjectivity associated with it. This subjectivity arises from realities that the subject has witnessed and experienced during their interaction with the environment.
Work Cited:
Somerville, Peter. "Homelessness and the meaning of home: Rooflessness or rootlessness?." International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 16.4 (1992): 529-539.
Dumbleton, Susanne M. "In the absence of home: The meaning of homelessness." Journal of prevention & intervention in the community 30.1-2 (2005): 57-73.
Sixsmith, Judith. "The meaning of home: An exploratory study of environmental experience." Journal of environmental psychology 6.4 (1986): 281-298.
Despres, Carole. "The meaning of home: Literature review and directions for future research and theoretical development." Journal of architectural and Planning Research (1991): 96-115.
Oswald, Frank, and Hans-Werner Wahl. "Dimensions of the meaning of home in later life." Home and identity in late life: International perspectives(2005): 21-45.
Saunders, Peter. "The meaning of ‘home’in contemporary English culture."Housing Studies 4.3 (1989): 177-192.
Neale, Joanne. "Homelessness and theory reconsidered." Housing Studies12.1 (1997): 47-61.
Marcus, Clare Cooper. House as a mirror of self: Exploring the deeper meaning of home. Nicolas-Hays, Inc., 2006.
Orner, Peter, and Tom Andes. Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives. San Francisco: McSweeney's, 2008. Print.
Finnegan, Caroline. "Home (Bitter) Sweet Home: A College Student Perspective." Grown and Flown. 2012. Web. 06 May 2016.
