For a comparative sociology of home: Relationships, cultures, structures

Home matters, for people’s everyday life and for social research, in ways that are still lacking a systematic sociological framework of analysis. As a contribution toward this framework, we define home as an emplaced relationship that prioritizes certain socio-material contexts over others, by virtu...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Current sociology 2020-09, Vol.68 (5), p.595-606
Main Authors: Boccagni, Paolo, Kusenbach, Margarethe
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Comparative sociology
Everyday life
Heuristic
Interdependence
Morality
Prospects
Social research
Social sciences
Sociocultural factors
Sociology
Structural aspects
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Home matters, for people’s everyday life and for social research, in ways that are still lacking a systematic sociological framework of analysis. As a contribution toward this framework, we define home as an emplaced relationship that prioritizes certain socio-material contexts over others, by virtue of the emotional, affective and practical values attached to them, in forms and degrees that change over space and time. This understanding highlights the interdependence between relational, cultural and structural aspects of home as a distinctive social experience. We then connect the sociological debate with the discourse on home across social sciences more broadly, with a particular emphasis on the heuristics, practices and multiscalarity of home. In terms of practical research, the methodological bases of ‘home studies’ are still in development, also regarding the prospects of translating and comparing home across socio-cultural and spatial contexts. Nonetheless, this Special Issue of Current Sociology opens up new ways to advance the field of home studies – theoretically in our opening paper, and empirically in the six articles that follow.
ISSN:0011-3921
1461-7064
DOI:10.1177/0011392120927776