The Question of Home: Exclusion, Division and Forgetting in the World of the House

This essay explores how domestic structures symbolise, embody and materialise social status, divisions and identities. It examines ordinary structures—doors, windows, walls and stairs. The central research question asks how ‘home’ can be reshaped to influence, even remake, social relations. Fieldwork in the houses (and castles) of England and Wales comprised walking and observation; findings are also based on textual sources. The two research strands produce a form of intertextual writing, representing the experience of ‘dwelling’. The focus on how the built environment influences human emotions and behaviours, and how these might be reworked, also brought to mind Debord’s (1955) notion of psychogeography, in exploring the ‘world of the house’ (Bourdieu, ‘The Kabyle House’, 1979: 143). In particular, the twin concepts of heimlich/unheimlich demonstrate how the uncanny and its obverse are contained within the domestic sphere. Intertextuality unsettles homely notions of domesticity and shows how architecture is implicated in producing and maintaining social inequality. In conclusion, I propose that the desire to display status, wealth and power in built form has persisted, from the hall house to the penthouse. Through active remembering, recognition of the un/heimlich character of ‘home’ and compassion, it may be possible to reshape the ‘world of the house’.