Mary Douglas's Definition Of Home As A Kind Of Space

In one of her writings, Mary Douglas describes the home as “a kind of space”. She defines the home as always a localizable idea, but not necessarily a fixed one. This is a simple idea that brings upon a few revelations: Firstly, that one should always be able to describe where the home is. Secondly, that along with time, where this home shall be can change. This is evidently true because people can still move and still find a place to call home, as much so as a person can stay very much fixed in a place, yet cannot call it a home. A “nonhome” as she described it is one that was a fixed an solid building, full of domestic things, but lacks permanence and does not show the regular cycles of daily life. A home therefore is not only a space, but one that has some structure in time. Here the home takes on an architectural layout. The spaces within the home and the objects within the space take up a chronological …show more content…
A home must be treated as a virtual community, and that the practises of the outside world of money and cents cannot be used. She compares the functions of the home and the hotel, one of which is driven by demand and monetary compensation. You can walk in and out of the hotel as one pleases, but you cannot as much as place the dishes far away from where it is intended in the home. Freedom here is limited in the home, as it is defined as a shared space. The community expects things to be where they are in the house to a certain degree, like how the toaster must be in the kitchen. The mutual feeling of complacency is what makes the home what it is. If you struggle to find out where the dishes are in the home, it ceases to be that. We strive for control over our personal lives, as much as with our personal space. This is the structure that gives us comfort in the house: We have faith that the place that we left things in the house shall remain there until we next move