Place and Identity

The Performance of Home

Joanna Richardson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351139663
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medizin
• Subtopic: Gesundheitswesen, Verwaltung & Pflege

The UK is experiencing a housing crisis unlike any other. Homelessness is on the increase and more people are at the mercy of landlords due to unaffordable housing. Place and Identity: Home as Performance highlights that the meaning of home is not just found within the bricks and mortar; it is constructed from the network of place, space and identity and the negotiation of conflict between those – it is not a fixed space but a link with land, ancestry and culture. This book fuses philosophy and the study of home based on many years of extensive research. Richardson looks at how the notion of home, or perhaps the lack of it, can affect identity and in turn the British housing market. This book argues that the concept of 'home' and physical housing are intrinsically linked and that until government and wider society understand the importance of home in relation to housing, the crisis is only likely to get worse.

This book will be essential reading for postgraduate students whose interest is in housing and social policy, as well as appealing to those working in the areas of implementing and changing policy within government and professional spaces.

1
Performing home

An introduction

Home is a cyclical construction of us. We shape home and home shapes us. Home is a feeling, not a structure. We bring home to our house. When we feel ‘at home’ we can be our true self. But home is not always a fairytale with a fixed happy ending. There are dark corners in our attempt to be ‘at home’, our house may not protect us – it may indeed feel like a trap.

My aim, in this book, is to build on previous studies of housing and home by opening up a new area for exploration and philosophical reflection – going beyond ‘housing as home’ and examining instead the intersection of place, identity and performance in our quest for ‘home’. The desire for home, the journey to home, the reconstruction of our meaning of home within a space, and our need to locate ourselves – our identity – within the world. These are all aspects of the ‘performance’ of home. Not limited necessarily to a physical structure, but always linked to a space (geographical or temporal) and a place (physical land or relativity to others). Our home, or our quest for home, is inextricably linked to our identity. The contribution of this book, building on current literature and a range of my own research findings and experiences, is a new frame for thinking about home – adding to the academic debate, offering reflection on political and professional practice for those working in housing and creating a reflective space for all of us currently at, or looking for, home.

Context

Housing – shelter – is one of our basic human needs. Without a place to live, our health and wellbeing is threatened, our sense of connection with community and work is broken. In the longer term, as Maslow (1943) identified, if our basic needs such as shelter are not met, then we cannot go on to fulfil our aspirations and goals and become the best selves we can be. The focus for governments of any political persuasion has been to talk of numbers of housing units that are built, or not. The provision of roofs over heads though is not a satisfactory end point; there is a need to understand further how houses (or other forms of accommodation) become ‘home’ and to explore the ways in which we view ourselves in connection with home. We must ask what impact home (or the lack thereof) has on our own perceived identity and undertake a more philosophical consideration of what home means. To ensure sufficient provision and management of homes and communities, we need to go beyond bricks and mortar, to examine identity and meaning.

The problem we face is not only an evidenced need for more houses to be built in the right places and at the right price, but a growing number of people who have a roof over their head but who do not have a home, a place within which and from which they can accomplish their goals. Many in Generation Rent are living in high-cost, shared accommodation in the private sector. Some report shoddy landlord practice, revenge evictions, damp, dangerous repairs and pest infestations. Whilst clearly, there are many landlords who do let responsibly, this increasing number of reports from young people show, at the least, a dissatisfaction with the places they currently reside – they are a long way from ‘home’.

Exploring and understanding ‘home’ should not be seen as a philosophical luxury. Of course, without the building of houses, sites, roads, schools and hospitals, then ‘home’ is not possible. But the built unit is not the end point of home. Some may argue that ‘an English man’s home is his castle’ and that intervention by governments and corporations should stop at the front door. However, as shown by the increasing numbers of reports of poor letting and management practice in a growing private rented sector, there is a need to open the door and offer protection and help where it is needed. We must help people access housing, but then also provide support to create that space or move to another space that can be considered as ‘home’. In attempting to understand ‘home’, we can highlight ways in which government policy, local authority and housing association practice can help support people to accomplish their goals. Debating this is not just a theoretical argument – it can lead to better everyday practice.

The fire at Grenfell Tower, London, in 2017, brought issues of safety, security, housing and home into tragically sharp focus. Over seventy people were eventually named as having been killed by the fire – young, old, men and women from all over the world who had made London their home. Housing policy and debates then must concern themselves with physical structures (and their safety and security) as well as less tangible social and support networks which help to maintain ‘home’. Whilst this book argues that ‘home’ is not only about bricks and mortar, the physical structure of housing is though, vitally important to creating and maintaining home. The personal testimonies of those who lived and lost loved ones in the Grenfell Tower are compelling. The flats – the homes – within the tower, turned from spaces with presumed physical safety and integrity of structure to a death-trap.

Well-maintained houses can be a place of security, but we know the space surrounding house and home can also be one of conflict. This can happen within a space – for example, through domestic violence or other abuse. But it also occurs in the discourse – the debates about housing and home. It can be seen in arguments and objections to new housing development being built which embody the cognitive dissonance around importance of home. It is possible for someone to be heard worrying about the lack of affordable houses in their area for grown-up children starting their own family to be able to rent or buy, but in the following breath object to plans for new development at the bottom of their garden because of the concern on overuse of local doctors, roads and indeed potential negative impact on house prices because of spoilt views. To hold these two thoughts in one head – to understand the importance of home even for our own family and yet to object to new places being built because of the impact on one’s own individual dwelling – is challenging but not at all uncommon.

Home can also be inextricably linked with ‘ownership’ in the political discourse. Getting on the housing ladder invariably means on the ownership ladder. But what does ownership mean in relation to home? It links in many debates to security and to quality, and it also links to wealth – to have an asset base to leverage for the future of yourself and family. However do these characteristics of home have to be in the form of ownership? It is possible to provide security and quality through different rental tenure agreements in the private sector, as found in continental Europe, as well as better regulation of landlords to ensure properties are well maintained – safe and sound. In terms of investing in an asset to leverage, say, social care in old age, there could be better development of alternative financial products that would keep investment as ‘safe as houses’. Home shouldn’t have to be owned to feel secure, high quality – there need to be alternative ways too for potential future return on investment and savings for individuals and families across generations.

Examining objections to new building can show the appreciation for the need for homes in general, but also the worry about the impact on ‘my’ home. Such conflict, over use of space and right to ‘home’, can be extremely problematic for planners and developers – and ultimately for those living in unsatisfactory accommodation who are looking for ‘home’. Where such fissures in understanding of home can be explored, there may be more open spaces for negotiation in planning for communities to overcome challenges and conflict.

There is a need for a philosophical debate on housing and home to help contrast with, and provide a challenge to, the overuse of the word ‘home’ by government, agencies and builders who previously used words like ‘units’ to describe their constructions. As this book will argue, home is more than bricks and mortar: it is a feeling internalised, represented through emotions, memories, freedom to be our authentic selves, even small objects carried with us to help us carry ‘home’ in our heart.

This chapter will now go on to introduce, briefly, two key concepts returned to throughout the book – ‘home’ and ‘performing’. Discussed within these two concepts is the notion of ‘identity’ and the complexity and intersectionality of identities. All of these terms are open to interpretation and personal translation. Whilst this work attempts to discuss meanings and complexity in relation to each and then in relation to our own ‘identity’ at different points in the book; it is appropriate to note the near impossibility of fixing meaning at one specific point that could be meaningful for all (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001).

Home, identity and performance will all then stretch, change and reset in meaning over time and space and according to individual readers. The challenge is in recognising this, but not shying from the importance of the attempt to understand and recognise such vital concepts as ‘home’. This indeed is the key point in this book: if we don’t engage with the conflicts inherent in the meaning of ‘home’, because it is too difficult, this could manifest in the continuing denial of home to many people. If, however, we grapple with ‘home’ – the ideal outcome would be more sensitive legislation, policy and practice to deliver home.

Home

The book explores different ways that home has meaning. This goes beyond house as home, and includes nuanced intersections of identity and place. Taking the time to investigate the meanings of home is important, because it is such a vital fundamental part of our wellbeing – to feel ‘at home’.

In contributing to a framework going beyond ‘house as home’, definitions are going to be important. This whole book is a discussion on the definition of ‘home’ as part of the definition of ‘us’ as performers of our own identities. Home has been the subject of a large variety of texts, for example Despres (1991), Somerville (1997), Chapman and Hockey (1999), Moore (2000), King (2004), Mallett (2004) and Blunt and Dowling (2006) all review and develop this work. This chapter will not undertake a forensic literature review of all the studies and the critiques on home, but it will draw from, and think about some of the key ideas which have emerged.

Despres (1991) undertook a review of the literature on home and outlined categories of meanings of home identified across the studies in the review. They included:

• Home as security and control
• Home as a reflection of one’s ideas and values
• Home as acting upon and modifying one’s dwelling (achievement and control)
• Home as permanence and continuity
• Home as relationships with family and friends
• Home as centre of activities
• Home as a refuge from the outside world
• Home as indicator of personal status
• Home as material structure (perhaps meaning here as a machine for living)
• Home as a place to own

(Adapted from Despres, 1991, pgs 97–99)

There have been subsequent review articles considering the range of meanings and categories of home. This book takes the argument one step further on thinking about the performance of home. This goes beyond home as a reflection of our identity; but rather on the performance of home we undertake to create and recreate our own identity and place in the world. The complexity and messiness of the meaning of home will be a thread throughout the book. Home is not a singular entity; it is not even bound necessarily within a structure – but can be within us, wherever we are. A secure structure, or place to return to, can help provide the security for home, but it can also entrap us. Home is also in multiple locales, situations, times and scenarios (Massey, 1994). Understanding home is a challenge exactly because it is within us – feelings about home are internalised and therefore difficult to measure and analyse (Ravetz and Turkington, 2011).

This book will weave the many functions of, and dreams for, home – many of these have been touched upon in a body of literature spanning types and categories of home meaning, as drawn together by Despres (1991). Home cannot be seen in isolation from other contexts and locales; indeed Blunt and Dowling (2006) remind us that the meaning of home is constructed within a wider framework of power dynamics.

Home as a place and as a spatial imaginary helps to constitute identity whereby people’s senses of themselves are related to and produced through lived and metaphorical experiences of home. These identities and homes are, in turn, produced and articulated through relations of power.

(Blunt and Dowling, 2006, pg 256)

Home is not a vacuum, the inconsistencies, hegemonic patriarchy, inequalities are all brought into home. In exploring the darker side of home, the inconsistency of home, the duty as well as love, the violence as well as the security, then we can learn much more than just looking at idealised norms of what home ‘should be’. Chapman (1999) says: ‘When we dare to enter the House of Doom we learn much about the ideal home’ (pg 147).

Mallett (2004) highlights the complexities within the built home, the space of home – the interconnections of people within a place. These complexities exist within families, between generations, expectations, identities. A further layer of complexity of relationships can clearly occur in ‘home’ where there is necessitated sharing with strangers, either because of affordability issues, or characteristics of a housing scheme. Connections between place and people who choose to dwell together and also between people who are strangers and place are complex, but they help us to test the meaning of ‘home’.

So, ‘home’ is complex and difficult to define. We can define ‘house’ relatively simply though; indeed, Atkinson and Jacobs (2016) say: “A house is a domestic dwelling, a structure in which people live” (pg 9). For shorthand a ‘house’, in this scenario as dwelling, could equally be a bungalow, flat or other bricks and mortar structure in which a household lives. There are many dwelling constructions which are not ‘house’, but are still constructions, perhaps of home, in different parts of the world – meeting different cultural norms and practices. These will be explored in more detail in an examination of nomadism and home later in the book.

A house, for modern architects like Le Corbusier, was a ‘machine for living’. He advocated ‘mass building’ so that people were able to have these machines to help them live. He makes clear, the importance of the house, and of architecture to deliver machines that support ‘living’:

The problem of the house is a problem of the epoch. The equilibrium of society today depends upon it. Architecture has for its first duty, in this period of renewal, that of bringing about a revision of values, a revision of the constituent elements of the house.

(Le Corbusier, 1985 (1927), pg 225)

Looking beyond the house as functional support for living, Bachelard (2014) sees the poetry and the beauty in our dwellings – not solely on a physical aesthetic, but on what they allow us to be:

if I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.

(pg 28)

Gilman (1903) eloquently articulated the complexities of home at the turn of the last century – the duality of love and duty in home and the unvalued work of women in the home. Nevertheless, within that messiness of feeling about home, the security and protection is not lost in that:

The time when all men were enemies, when out-of-doors was one promiscuous battlefield, when home, well fortified was the only place on earth where a man could rest in peace, is past, long past. But the feeling that home is more secure and protective than anywhere else is not outgrown.

(Gilman, 1903, pg 27) [original emphasis]

Whilst modernity might have mitigated the need for a fortified home – for the machine we live in – to physically protect us the way we once needed, we can see that the ideas of Bachelard and of Gilman still hold true – there is an emotional and sentimental home, often connected with a physical space or dwelling, but not always necessarily so.

A home goes beyond ‘house’. Sometimes, home goes beyond physical construction of any kind – a sound, smell or an image in memory can be ‘home’ when we need it to be. Close our eyes in an anonymous space – for a moment on a train perhaps – and a piece of music can bring home to mind, a day dream, a photo on our increasingly smart phones. We can look forward to being at home, and for a moment feel at home, even when we’re not there – yet. Home is about us, the connections between people and their space:

The home, in other words, is a socio-spatial system. It is not reducible either to the social unit of the household, or to the physical unit of the house, for it is the active and reproduced fusion of the two.

(Saunders and Williams, 1988, pg 83)

We construct home through knowing, experiencing and living. We know the physicality of the space and it becomes part of us the longer we are there (inherently knowing where the stairs begin and end in the dark, how many paces it takes to run to a crying child’s bedroom). The longer we are there, the more at home we can feel (Gurney, 1990). We socially and physically construct ‘home’ (Somerville, 1997), but it also makes and shapes us through our physical experience of living our everyday lives within its boundaries (Dowling and Power, 2012).

Home can be constructed through housing (amongst other things) – but it is a process as well as an entity – reconstructed to reflect changes in our world, identity and context. In talking about the domestic sphere, Blunt (2005) refers to the ‘complex entanglements of nature and culture, and of human and nonhuman agency, in shaping the domestic sphere’ (pg 512). Lawson (2006) recognises this complexity in her comparison of home-ownership and housing provision in Australia and the Netherlands – the variety of aspects involved, the different and embedded sets of social relations governing the interaction of people, each with their own view of the world. The socia...