Home as memory, place and social construction: a literature-based discussion

    Home is wonderfully amorphous, yet, often, physically concrete. It informs our perceptions of ourselves and others, serving as an important facet of our place-based identities. On page 93 of Tim Cresswell’s introductory geography book, he states that home, “as a form of place, lies right at the heart of human geography.” Place is the primary consideration in the social construction of “home.” However, our understanding of the concept would be incomplete without examination of the personal connotations that accompany perceptions of home.

    One of my favorite books is By the Iowa Sea. It explores the “ordinary,” love, ability and community resilience, all through a narrator who is acutely aware of the places he occupies. Joe Blair lives in Iowa. He has for the past fifteen years. His house is in Iowa. So are his family and his car and his job. So, based on all of these factors, readers might assume that Blair’s home is in Iowa too. But through his conflicting attitudes, Blair disputes this idea. He embraces some aspects of claiming Iowa as his home-- carefully tending to his yellow house and engaging with his community not only in times of hardship, but also in instances of joy. However, Blair is not able to say that Iowa is his home and mean it. Maybe he doesn’t want it to be his home. Blair seeks respite in escapist fantasies of moving back to New England, where he grew up and intended on making home. He explores romantic fulfilment with a woman who is not his wife, in places that are not his house. Blair presents Iowa as a quasi-“home” for him.

    By the Iowa Sea also examines how home, or at least housing, is constructed (and deconstructed) in space. When the Iowa River flooded, destroying the houses of his neighbors, Blair and other community members tried to tame the physical river and maintain the person-centered attitude that made Iowa City home for many. After the flooding and damage to their neighborhoods, some families moved away, seeking home elsewhere. Others remained, determined to rebuild their houses to embody their ideals of home once again.

    What do you all consider to be your home? Is it one place or many? What makes a place “home” to you? Have you ever lived in a place that has not felt like home? Why?

Citations:

Blair, Joe. By the Iowa Sea. Scribner, March 2013.

Cresswell, Tim. Place: an introduction. John Wiley & Sons, 2014.

To add to the discussing of feeling "out of place":

 Hello everyone! 

    I wanted to make a post on here about something personal I can connect with our class regarding "body markers" and how they can influence our sense of belonging in a space. We were given the opportunity to discuss this in class on Thursday but it is a difficult subject for me to talk about, so I will post it here in hopes that someone will feel inspired by it and take something away from it. 

    I have fibromyalgia. My body does not work that way that able bodies do. Basically I am in pain all the time, and pain makes people exhausted. I have to get a substantial amount of rest in order to do simple tasks that others do not even think about, such as getting myself to our Social Geographies class each week. The interesting thing about my condition is that it is not something people can see. One cannot look at me and see that I am disabled. (I'm not sure if fibromyalgia is technically considered a disability, but it certainly is debilitating in my everyday life.) However, it still marks my body because I feel like it separates me from the rest of the world. In this day and age, we are obsessed with productivity. If we are not doing something all the time, we are looked down upon. This causes me to feel out of place among my coworkers, class mates, and even my loved ones. They do not understand it because they can't see it. But it is real, and the impact it has on my life is real. 

    Hopefully someone in this class is able to read this and feel a little less alone, because I know chronic pain is a common condition that people do not like to talk about.  I just think if we are all a little kinder and more understanding, the world would be a better place. Not all bodies are able to do the same things, and that's okay! I am including a small reading in here to add a little more insight on this topic. Thanks so much for reading. :) 

https://ct.counseling.org/2016/04/the-tangible-effects-of-invisible-illness/#

Supreme Court Ends Biden’s Eviction Moratorium

 Supreme Court Ends Biden’s Eviction Moratorium

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/26/us/eviction-moratorium-ends.html

I heard about this in the daily news and decided to find an article explaining this situation. The New York Times explains how the Supreme Court has recently rejected President Biden's moratorium on halting evictions due to covid-19. This decision puts lots of people at risk of homelessness due to unemployment during the pandemic. Many people have struggled to pay their rent payments during this challenging time and President Biden has worked with holding off evictions till others get back on their feet. I find it interesting that this article discussed the issue of homelessness and covid. Homeless folks are more likely to contract covid and spread the virus. Without a home to quarantine in, people are more likely to give covid to others when contagious. This article relates to our class in the way of space and place. Homes are such a vital space to humans. Especially during this pandemic, our homes create a place of safety for us and our families. Homes, apartments, and other places of housing are human rights not only during a pandemic but all the time. We have been able to stay at home when needed to be away from others. Those who are unable to work due to the pandemic are the ones who are typically most vulnerable to the virus. Thus, the people who may be unable to pay their rent are the most at risk of being homeless. This is a sad decision that leaves folks without many options.

Welcome to our class blog!

 Hi folks!  Welcome to the Social Geographies class blog.  Now that we're in week 3, I really want to encourage you to start blogging.  Here are the details of the assignment, in case you've forgotten:

In addition to participating in the classroom, we will have a class blog which will allow you to reflect on the readings and class discussions, connect them to your own life and experiences, exchange ideas with classmates, and discuss the ways that we see social geographies in our “everyday geographies”. This assignment is therefore intended to help you focus your thoughts, think about the class material in new and different ways, and interact with your classmates (and potentially the wider public) in an online setting.

You will be expected to participate in the class blog a minimum of five times throughout the semester. At least one of your blog posts must be a new blog entry, and up to four may be comments/responses to another blog post on the site. 

New blog entries should: 

• be carefully thought out and directly related to that week’s readings and/or class material; 
• be at least one to two paragraphs in length (200-400 words); 
• contain links to and/or discussion of outside sources which relate to the week’s readings (including other webpages, images, youtube videos, etc). These sources should help facilitate a discussion of the course topic; 
• be free of spelling or grammatical errors. 

Blog responses should: 

• be at least one to two paragraphs in length (200-400 words); 
• indicate that you are familiar with class readings (including other students’ blog posts); 
• be free of spelling or grammatical errors. 

You may contribute to the blog as many times as you want, but only one blog post per week will count toward your final grade (i.e., you can’t do all five posts in one week). 

I look forward to your blog contributions!!