Meaning and importance of "home" and "homelessness"

[lookingforhome]

I looking to understand the idea of home. Specifically, how does growing up in a home make us different from not having lived at home. I am trying to explore this through the idea of (1) homelessness, and (2) peripatetic living.
I'm struggling to find any significant material to read/learn about this. Can anyone recommend some philosophers or books which might help me out?

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Wikipedia may be a great place to start & end:


Nomad


Homelessness







...you're welcome.



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[lookingforhome]

Thanks Bill. I have gone through those. While they provide quite a bit of information, its more a factual aggregation of things. Still very useful though, but I've exhausted the leads I have got from there and still hungry for more

[HexHammer]

Depends on the context, it can be an oppotunity to experience new Places, but if one is thrown out of ones home due to lack of money to pay the land lord, then it can be traumatizing.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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What if there is no difference in the person?


Home is a place where you can normally hide for a minute from the world...




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Is there a personal aspect or issue that is inside of you in relation to this quest?


Philosophically, aren't we all homeless?



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[lookingforhome]

Thanks Bill.

Yes, I'm specifically considering forced homelessness and exploring it in context of poverty, to be more specific, homeless children/street children. Having not grown up with a "home" environment do they view the world differently? Theirs is, of course, a different world but all of us are part of it. Are they able form relationships based on trust and do they view morality and ethics the same way as others do. And I have other questions in a similar vein.

Is there something in all of us that makes us inherently look for (or build) a safe place for us, our home, our family (even if it is nomadic). And if someone has failed, since s/he was child, to build or find a home, do rest of the human needs like love, trust, friendship never really come to them because they are unhinged? How much of our home defines our identity?

These are some questions I wanted to understand with regards to the importance of home and family. Some of them are psychological and some are philosophical.

[uwot]

I looking to understand the idea of home. Specifically, how does growing up in a home make us different from not having lived at home. I am trying to explore this through the idea of (1) homelessness, and (2) peripatetic living.
I'm struggling to find any significant material to read/learn about this. Can anyone recommend some philosophers or books which might help me out?

I'm not sure if it is quite what you're after, but Down and out in Paris and London by George Orwell is worth reading. http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100171.txt

[lookingforhome]

Looks very promising. Thanks, uwot!

[duszek]

Home is where you are liked and where you have a standing and where people care for you and where you can relax.

Cosette lived with Thenadiers but it was hardly her home.

[Questionmark]

OP, you said "How much of our home defines our identity?" but i think its rather the opposite way around;

How much of our identity defines our homes? meaning too of course if some one is limited by for example poverty, their homes dont reflect their complete identity, compared to a 'rich person' who has more freedom in this world.

For some home is behind closed eyelids, but growing up being homeless changes a person of course, for better and worse i suppose, but thats what you are trying to find out right?

[duszek]

A home could be a room of one´s own. Virginia Woolf wrote a story about this problem.

I heard of a man who played cello a lot and his son suspected him that he was doing it in order to be able to put on his door: Nicht stören. (Don´t disturb.)

For this man music would be more home than the family environment.

[lookingforhome]

@Questionmark - you are right that the relationship between our homes and identity could well be the other way round and what I am interested in how does it change a person - morally, psychologically and pathologically.

While I haven't yet considered the angle of material belongings in a home, e.g. a chair versus my chair, because in these cases, as you pointed out, material wealth is an important consideration. My interest is more in how having a place to call home (or not) changes us. And I think that is what @duszek is hinting towards as well; that a home may not be physical at all. That facet also is very interesting, the assumption being that everyone needs/wants a home, physical or not - which is what I want to explore more.

If a person has never lived in one, has always to fend for him/herself in the streets, does that person have a strong identity of the self and would that person want/need a home, or has the experience fundamentally transformed the person?

Btw @duszek can you please help me find that story from Virginia Woolf.

[duszek]

"A Room of One´s Own" is an essay. Says Wikipedia.

I remember a story (probably by V. Woolf) about a married woman who rented a room in another house and just went there and sat there. So she did not receive any lover, she just sat there for some time at a time. And sadly, after a while she opened gas in this room to put an end to her life.

[The Voice of Time]

Specifically, how does growing up in a home make us different from not having lived at home.

For starters you'll probably see two differences. The ones who grow up in a home where they have their own space, can more freely do as they wish. If you live as a traveller, you're gonna find that you always rely on other people to set rules for you, you don't really have the opportunity to decide your own rules. On the other hand, you're gonna be more experienced, more knowledgeable of the world.

These two things considered, you can set up a two-by-two grid showing the following results (ordered by slot, first number is row, second is column):

1.1 You live at home, and have your own space = More freedom. Less knowledge of the world.
1.2 You live at home, but do not have your own space = Unfree. Less knowledge of the world.
2.1 You do not live at a home, and travel a lot = Unfree. More knowledge of the world.
2.2 You do not live at a home, but do not travel a lot = Unfree. Less knowledge of the world.

Ideally, you should both have a home and travel a lot x)

Of course, freedom here is relative. Travelling a lot you might have many freedoms the home-staying do not, but you'll loose more than you gain unless you have no problems with breaking rules constantly.

[duszek]

If you live in a city (it does not have to be as big as Oslo for instance) then you can explore a new part of it every day. Private homes or new public places. And things change all the time too.

Home is where I can relax. It can be a cafe or bistrot for some or a pub, like for example for some men in Bavaria who suffer from a draggon wife (Hausdrache).