ABSTRACT
What is ‘home’ to someone who is or has recently been homeless? That is the question in focus in this chapter. By showing the difficulties that homeless have with fitting inside the traditional boundaries of a dwelling it is emphasized, that a dwelling might be attached with negative feelings of inadequacy and lack of control. Some people might even feel trapped in a dwelling, and to them the feeling of home may instead be related to urban spaces, to specific objects, to spending time with friends, or to certain activities and daily routines. In our research on homelessness and homeliness we are combining anthropological studies of the everyday life of the homeless with architectural studies of the places they live in. In this combination of the two disciplines a collage technique has proved valuable and as a valid tool to study informants’ relations to their physical environment.
