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What’s in a home? Toward a critical theory of housing/dwelling

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  • Ariel Handel

Abstract

What is a home/house? How can we bridge between the concepts of a house, as a physical structure, and a home, with its symbolic and human meanings? The paper suggests an outline for a theory of housing/dwelling that considers the multiple facets of homes/houses: a top-down manufactured object, an ideal representation of ontological security, and a site of everyday lives and complex social relations. Combining several philosophical backgrounds—phenomenological dwelling, actor-network theory, Foucault’s dispositive, and Illich’s vernacularity—the home/house is investigated along three layers: (1) housing regime, that is the home/house as part of a broader system of planning, economy, or national goals; (2) critical phenomenology, aimed at finding and describing the gaps between the ideal-home image characterizing a given society and the home/house’s actual behavior; and (3) active dwelling, which regarded this gap as an engine for home-making as a political and agentic process. The theoretical arguments are briefly demonstrated through the case study of Palestinian homes/houses in the Occupied Territories, as political sites of both vulnerability and agency.

Suggested Citation

  • Ariel Handel, 2019. "What’s in a home? Toward a critical theory of housing/dwelling," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 37(6), pages 1045-1062, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:37:y:2019:i:6:p:1045-1062
    DOI: 10.1177/2399654418819104
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cameron Parsell, 2012. "Home is Where the House is: The Meaning of Home for People Sleeping Rough," Housing Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(2), pages 159-173.
    2. Maria Kaika, 2004. "Interrogating the geographies of the familiar: domesticating nature and constructing the autonomy of the modern home," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 265-286, June.
    3. Tovi Fenster, 2018. "The Micro-Geography of a Home as a Contact Zone: Urban Planning in Fragmented Settler Colonialism," Planning Theory & Practice, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 496-513, August.
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