Home

Home is a concept that refers both to a specific space, such as a dwelling or one's country, and to a sense of belonging—being “at home.” It is an idea that demonstrates the strong relationships between spaces, places, and emotions. Geographers have been interested in a range of aspects of home, including the house as home, material cultures of home, homelessness, home as a site of gendered relations, home and national identity, and the meanings of “home” to different groups.

The most basic meaning of home is a place to live. It can refer simultaneously to a current dwelling, a childhood home, or another place where loved ones live. This sense of home brings together ideas about physical space and the relationships that exist within and produce that space. The word home can be used to describe any form of dwelling, and in fact, other spaces are also described as home by people who feel a sense of belonging in them. For example, some people who are homeless describe the areas where they regularly spend time as “home” even if these are outdoors. However, in contemporary American society, home has been particularly associated with suburban developments of detached, or single-family, houses. Geographers study this association between particular urban forms, housing design, and familial relationships.

Feminist geographers have argued that this association between the home and particular forms of family life are rooted in the traditional gendered division of labor, in which men engage in paid work outside the home and women are responsible for housework and caring. The home is, therefore, a strongly gendered space, where men, women, and children may have different roles and experiences. This means that, as well as being a place of belonging, a home can be a site of exploitation and exclusion. For many women, the home can be a place of hard physical labor and, too often, the scene of domestic violence. It is also a workplace for many millions of domestic workers.

Meanings of home are not only differentiated along gendered lines. Life-course stages, class, and sexuality affect experiences and understandings of home, as does race/ethnicity. The African American writer bell hooks has argued that for poor women of color in the United States, the home is a site of empowerment, where strength can be gathered to fight the racism of the wider society. Geographers have also shown that home can take on a particular meaning for migrants. The house/home can be a site where the “homeland” is invoked and memories kept alive, for example, through interior decoration. This notion illustrates the links between the concept of home as a site of belonging at these very different scales.