The homo sapiens have a multitude of different cultures and throughout history many groups of people have been nomads and there have always been major people migration due to natural disaster, war or starvation.
A home is mentioned to be more than a house, an apartment but in the end it always comes down to a structure. I believe this to be too blunt, too definitive. We need a larger scope of what a home can be and what purpose it fills. There are old sayings "Home is where the heart is" pointing out that you can not choose your home and it does not need to be a structure. It can be family, country or even a singular person.
J. Douglas Porteus "Geographical Review, Vol. 66, No. 4.(Oct, 1976),pp.390
To me the first definition of home is:
A sense of belonging with something that is associated to you. Something that you can not choose neither can it choose you. It just sort of becomes your home, whether you spend a large amount of time there or not.
For my second definition I wanted to make use of the 'Journey' aspect of a home,
J. Douglas Porteus "Geographical Review, Vol. 66, No. 4.(Oct, 1976),pp.387
I am interested in the way J. Douglas uses the home as a return point, a rendez-vous for your journey where you can recuperate and relax. Still he refers to it more as a structure than an individual or group. I believe home as a return point is very correct. You yourself might even have a thought that if things get rough "You can always go home", get help or just go home to try and make sense of it all.
My second definition would therefore be:
Home is like an anchor or harbor. It is a return point to your journey. The constraints it puts upon you is partially what increases its value. A home comes with obligations and demands. It can not be neglected or disregarded as this might end in you losing your home. Your home must be considered when taking hard decisions and it always serves as an anchor, keeping you safe, giving you a place to go when all is lost.
For my third definition I want to talk about home as a concept rather than an achievable thing.
"References to the symbolic potency of the ideal or idealized home recur
throughout home literature. For example, Tucker (1994) suggests that ‘most
people spend their lives in search of home, at the gap between the natural
home [conceived as the home environment conducive to human existence, i.e.
dry land] and the particular ideal home where they would be fully fulfilled’.
This may be a confused search, a sentimental and nostalgic journey for a lost
time and space. It may also be a religious pilgrimage or ‘search for a Promised
Land.’ One’s ‘actual home tends to be our best approximation of our ideal
home, under a given set of constraining circumstances’ (184)."
-Shelley Mallet, Understanding home: a critical review of
the literature, 2004.
In regard to the quote i want to talk about the "Dream Home" the concept that people keep searching for. The structure many attempt to build and or purchase and make. A dream home serves to be the place that is entirely designed for you and your needs. When mentioned it seems kind of selfish, absurd really. Something or someone entirely dedicated to you and your needs. Is that really something we want? I can understand the material bit where you want a living space devoted to you but home incorporates so much more, country, family and friends. We do want them to be devoted to us but not on the level of what we want our building to be. Family and friends lose their value if the have to fulfill all your needs and heed to your will. Is a dream home really ideal. If a dream home is to be reflected on every level is not a dream home absurd. Do we need a split definition of dream home and dream house. I believe we do.
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