ABSTRACT

We can see dwelling as oscillating between certain poles and rattling up and down continua between these extremes: between privacy and intrusion; between anxiety and desire; even between physicality and affectivity. We can now extend the number of these apparent polarities by a further one. Dwelling, I want to suggest, can oscillate, can shudder violently, between two other existential points. These are on no continuum, but involve the dislocation of effective dwelling. These are true opposites, with no real mid-point or point of connection between the two. At one point is the caring, the sharing, the protected intimacy of ‘pure’ dwelling – of dwelling as we would have it, or what Gaston Bachelard (1969) saw as the essence of home: ‘the really inhabited space’ (p. 5) of the ur-dwelling lodged in memory. But at the other is the absolute lack, where inhabitation ceases to be real, but is instead an emptiness caused by loss. This is a de-animated space created by the trauma of separation or death. These two points of difference – of intimacy and loss – can be characterised as love and nothingness. What a discussion on loss shows, perhaps more than anything else, is that dwelling is about far more than housing.