Chapter 7: Urban and Housing Studies

Interviews with:

Keith Jacobs, Dirk Geldolf, Stijn Oosterlynck, Ann Varley, Michele Lancione

The most straightforward remark, for whoever works on home, is that the feeling of being or not being at home cannot be analyzed separately from the material and physical space which people occupy. However, it is remarkable how little housing and home studies have dialogued in the past (Boccagni, 2014). While home tends to be addressed as a more philosophical concept which concerns belonging, identity and memory (Mallett, 2004), housing studies have grown closer to urban studies, design and planning (Clapham, Clark, & Gibb, 2012). The latter does not frequently engage with the subjective meaning of home and how it shapes people's ways of inhabiting and dwelling in their housing environment. The interviews with the scholars in this chapter aim to facilitate a dialogue between these two trends of research. In more conceptual terms, the chapter addresses the interplay between physical structures (houses and urban environments) and the related feelings and practices of homing.