Hi, I’m Cate, a Project Officer for Shelter SA in Adelaide, South Australia. Shelter SA is an organisation that believes that housing is a basic human right. We promote and campaign for affordable housing, public housing and for those who are homeless.
If the idea of ‘home’ represents security and safety for most people, its opposite is homelessness. But, homelessness signifies much more than simply being without physical refuge. How can we really explore the impact of homelessness unless we understand what home represents to us?
I’m asking the question: what is ‘home? What do you think creates the feeling of ‘home’? Is ‘home’ the place you live, or is ‘home’ another place connected to your history, heritage, friends, family or country?
“Our literal home is a “sacred,” mythic place, even for non-religious people. We all believe in a special space beyond our own doorsills that simply cannot be violated. This is my place, where I can close the door on chaos and find some kind of cosmos, peace, assurance of purpose. “This is mine; here I belong.” (unknown source)
The meaning of ‘home’ is not an easy concept to isolate. It seems to encompass a broad sphere of emotional experience, sensory perception, memory and feelings of nostalgia. For many Australian Aboriginal people it relates, very directly to Lands they feel displaced from living in the city, or traditional Lands represent places where they experience safety and wholeness.
While the term ‘home’ is immediately identifiable, and the physical reality of home is a central characteristic of our everyday lives, our perceptions of what home truly means to us, do not get very much attention. Home, seems something most of us take for granted. But, the most elemental embodiment of life is ‘home’.
Home constitutes, for almost all of us, simple rituals that link us with sequences of the day and patterns of time. The rituals that surround, gathering food, cooking for ourselves or our families, washing, eating, sleeping and cleaning connect us to almost all of humanity yet we do very little to celebrate or pay tribute to those rituals that centre around, and link us to the diverse but collective experience, of ‘home’.
Humans, throughout history, have constructed a myriad of methods to evoke ‘home’. The concerns of modern first world societies are not fundamentally that dissimilar to the struggles of very early humankind. We still seek the basics for survival, such as, food, clothing and shelter, perhaps more sophisticated and complicated versions, but the basics nevertheless. But because humans seek and need shelter, the homes we have, and continue to inhabit, create and recreate layer after layer of cultural meaning.
The meaning of home, of a protected refuge, is very often connected with comfort, relationships, family, relatives, friends and the traditional rituals that give meaning to our lives. This is borne out by the trauma people experience after a break-in or the loss of home through a natural disaster or a relationship split up. But home is also related to memory, a wish to honour the past and communicate to others our identities through the spirit of our homes.
To start the project I emailed as many contacts across Australia as I possibly could. Below is the message I sent out and the posts are the messages I received back. If you would like to add anything more please share your thoughts with all of us!!!!!
What is Home
I am initiating a small project that explores the idea of ‘home’ and what ‘home’ represents to a broad range of individuals. I’m interested in gathering a big collection of people’s ideas about ‘the meaning of home’. I would like to explore what ‘home’ represents for individuals including as many culturally diverse people as possible. I’m asking the question: what is ‘home? What do you think creates the feeling of ‘home’? Is ‘home’ the place you live, or is ‘home’ another place connected to your history, heritage, friends, family or country? Is ‘home’ defined by an internal response to place or by external circumstances?
If the idea of ‘home’ represents security and safety for most people, its opposite is homelessness. But, homelessness signifies much more than simply being without physical or emotional refuge. How can we really explore the impact of homelessness unless we understand what home represents to us?
Posted by sheltersa 
