House and Home

If asked to imagine home, most of us will come to think of a particular house or building. And, for many of us, the quintessential image of home remains the place we grew up in. This close association between house and home has long marked anthropological literature. And yet, when we imagine home, it is often not the structures themselves but the feelings, practices, and relationships within familiar spaces which give home a powerful sense of belonging. Home may be the scent of a grandmother’s cooking, the familiar fuzz of a worn cushion, the seemingly defiant thrill of hanging posters on the wall as a teenager, or the knot of tension in the stomach of a child listening to an argument in the adjoining room. Recent anthropological studies have hence looked beyond physical structures to understand home in terms of a diverse array of practices, meaningful and imaginative forms, and feelings which surround a sense of groundedness within the world. Understood in such terms, home becomes something much less solid than a structure of stone or wood. It tends to be contestable and fragile, a domain not only of belonging but also of potential alienation when attempts to make home fail or are subverted. This flourishing literature increasingly suggests that while physical shelter may be a basic existential need, it is houses and homes, wrapped up in the desire and struggle for belonging, which underpin human sociality.