In recent years there has been a proliferation of writing on the meaning of home within the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, psychology, human geography, history, architecture and philosophy. Although many researchers now understand home as a multidimensional concept and acknowledge the presence of and need for multidisciplinary research in the field, there has been little sustained reflection and critique of the multidisciplinary field of home research and the diverse, even contradictory meanings of this term. This paper brings together and examines the dominant and recurring ideas about home represented in the relevant theoretical and empirical literature. It raises the question whether or not home is (a) place(s), (a) space(s), feeling(s), practices, and/or an active state of state of being in the world? Home is variously described in the literature as conflated with or related to house, family, haven, self, gender, and journeying. Many authors also consider notions of being-at-home, creating or making home and the ideal home. In an effort to facilitate interdisciplinary conversations about the meaning and experience of home each of these themes are briefly considered in this critical literature review.

Understanding Home: A Critical Review of the Literature:

https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Intelligence-and-socioeconomic-success-A-meta-analytic-review-of-longitudinal-research.pdf

Intelligence and socioeconomic success: A meta-analytic review of longitudinal research ☆

The social and private micro-level consequences of homeownership

The 1989 privatization of the water supply sector in England and Wales is a much-cited model of market environmentalism—the introduction of market institutions to natural resource management as a means of reconciling goals of efficiency and environmental conservation. Yet, more than a decade after privatization, the application of market mechanisms to water supply management is much more limited than had been expected. Drawing on recent geographical research on commodities, this article analyzes the reasons for this retrenchment of the market environmentalist project. I make three related claims: resource commodification is a contested, partial, and transient process; commodification is distinct from privatization; and fresh water is a particularly uncooperative commodity. To illustrate these claims, I explore how water's geography underpinned the failure of commodification initiatives in England and Wales. I focus specifically on contradictions faced by industry regulators, water companies, and ...

http://www.ielrc.org/activities/conference_0901/content/bakker%20neoliberalising%20nature.pdf

Neoliberalizing Nature? Market Environmentalism in Water Supply in England and Wales

The central focus of this paper is the notion that the home can provide a locale in which people can work at attaining a sense of ontological security in a world that at times is experienced as threatening and uncontrollable. The paper builds on and develops the ideas of Giddens and Saunders on ontological security and seeks to break down and operationalise the concept and explore it through a set of empirical data drawn from interviews with a group of older New Zealand home owners. The extent to which home and home life meets the conditions for the maintenance of ontological security is assessed through an exploration of home as the site of constancy in the social and material environment; home as a spatial context in which the day to day routines of human existence are performed; home as a site free from the surveillance that is part of the contemporary world which allows for a sense of control that is missing in other locales; and home as a secure base around which identities are constructed. The paper also argues that meanings of home are context specific and thus the data need to be seen in relation to New Zealanders’ long standing pre-occupation with land and home ownership. The paper concludes by speculating on how meanings of home may be changing.

Home, Home Ownership and the Search for Ontological Security:

The home has been a neglected research area in housing studies. This paper represents one preliminary attempt to explore the role of the home in contemporary British society. Key concerns include class and social relations, the sociology of consumption and the home as a locale.

The constitution of the home: Towards a research agenda

Beyond housing classes: the sociological significance of private property rights in means of consumption†

This paper develops an earlier and more speculative article on the meaning of the home by drawing on material generated in a recent household survey in three English towns. It first considers the frequently repeated view that men experience home as haven while women experience it more negatively as a place of work and entrapment. No evidence is found to support this view, for although they divide domestic work unevenly between them, men and women seem to express very similar sentiments about their homes. Next the paper looks at the significance of age and shows that home becomes more important to people as they grow older. Thirdly, it considers the significance of tenure. Here it is found that home ownership does not ‘privatise’ people in terms of their life styles (as critics have often imagined), but it does create the basis for a stronger sense of ‘ontological security’ than is found among tenants. Finally, the paper shows very little difference in the cultural meaning of the home in different...

The meaning of ‘home’ in contemporary english culture

Detalied Contents. On the Website. Acknowledgements. How to Use this Book. PART I RESEARCH DESIGN. 1 Discovering Facts, Testing Theories. 2 When is a Survey Appropriate?. . PART II DATA COLLECTION. 3 Preparing a Questionnaire. 4 Drawing a Sample. 5 Interviewing, Coding and Scaling. 6 Preparing a Data File. . PART III DATA ANALYSIS. 7 Describing and Exploring Data. 8 Analysing the Strength of Association between Variables. 9 Inferring Population Parameters from Sample Statistics. 10 Modelling Associations between Variables. Glossary of Technical Terms. The Survey Methods Workbook Website. Index

The survey methods workbook : from design to analysis

Cet expose traite de l'importance des consequences des differents modes d'occupation de logement, en ce qui concerne les rapports de classes. L'accent est mis precisement sur la Grande Bretagne ou, environ 40% des ouvriers manuels possedent maintenant leur propre maison, et ou l'extension de l'occupation de l'habitation par le proprietaire a nettement contribue a accroitre les dividions sociales et politiques, au sein de la classe ouvriere. La question qui se pose, est de savoir si de telles divisions ont une base materielle reelle, ou si elles sont principalement ideologiques. On voit que la reponse a cette question aura d'importantes consequences pour l'organisation de luttes politiques autour de la question du logement. L'expose debute par une discussion des perspectives weberiennes et marxistes en matiere d'occupation de logement et de rapports de classes. La perspective weberienne, liee aux travaux de Rex et de Moore sur 'le logement par classes', est rejetee, quoique la possibilite de reformuler le concept du logement par classes, au sein d'une orientation weberienne, soit mise en evidence. Le point de vue marxiste, qui rejette la possession du logement comme etant etrangere a l'identification des interets de classe, est egalement rejete, sous pretexte que l'occupation de l'habitation par le proprietaire est un facteur crucial d'une augmentation reelles des richesses individuelles qui peuvent largement depasser les economics que l'on peut faire sur les salaires de toute une vie. L 'expose montre ensuite, comment la possession de sa maison va dans le sens d'une accumulation des richesses, et comment ceci cree une reelle division d'interet economique entre les proprietaires en jouissance et les locataires, fait qui se manifeste souvent dans les luttes politiques locales. La conclusion qui se degage de ceci est que, les efforts des activistes locaux pour unifier les deux groupes en une alliance politique contre le capital monopole, peut saverer a la fois peu judicieux et nuisible a la productivite.

Peter Saunders

Papers

The constitution of the home: Towards a research agenda

Beyond housing classes: the sociological significance of private property rights in means of consumption†

The meaning of ‘home’ in contemporary english culture

The survey methods workbook : from design to analysis

Domestic property and social class