M. Jan Holton
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780300207620
- eISBN:
- 9780300220797
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300207620.003.0002
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
Home is a complex notion that combines our subjective experience of place, relationships, and God, or the spiritual. Home at its best brings these together in unique ways through which we learn to ...
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Home is a complex notion that combines our subjective experience of place, relationships, and God, or the spiritual. Home at its best brings these together in unique ways through which we learn to make meaning, develop a sense of belonging, develop a sense of security or safety, and learn to create relationships. These “functions of home” are among essential elements that become at risk in forced displacement. This chapter thus examines the emotional attachment to place and how it shapes our self-identity beginning from the earliest days of psychological development and continuing to some degree throughout a lifetime. Outward reaching circles moving from the first home bring together place and relationships and eventually expand our notion of home from house and family to neighborhood to town and so on. This chapter lays the groundwork for understanding four contexts of forced displacement presented in the ensuing chapters each of which offers an in-depth examination of one particular function of home.Less
Home is a complex notion that combines our subjective experience of place, relationships, and God, or the spiritual. Home at its best brings these together in unique ways through which we learn to make meaning, develop a sense of belonging, develop a sense of security or safety, and learn to create relationships. These “functions of home” are among essential elements that become at risk in forced displacement. This chapter thus examines the emotional attachment to place and how it shapes our self-identity beginning from the earliest days of psychological development and continuing to some degree throughout a lifetime. Outward reaching circles moving from the first home bring together place and relationships and eventually expand our notion of home from house and family to neighborhood to town and so on. This chapter lays the groundwork for understanding four contexts of forced displacement presented in the ensuing chapters each of which offers an in-depth examination of one particular function of home.
