ABSTRACT
The notion of “home” is ambiguous and carries with it a great amount of shifting meanings, which are often deeply entangled with each other. On the one hand, home may refer to a concrete, physical and intimate space of daily dwelling. However, on the other hand, home can also refer to a symbolic, imagined and intangible entity such as the “homeland”. The notion of home is in many ways also tied to the emotionally but also politically meaningful question of belonging. For this reason, questions related to home also play a pivotal role in the ongoing process through which people construct identities. The meanings, feelings and experiences connected to home offer people an imagined point of reference that influences the ways in which they shape their sense of self. Here are some of the questions that are profoundly linked to the process through which people negotiate identities and belonging: Where is home? What does home mean? And who is entitled to feel at home in a particular space?
