House vs. Home

So far I have been exploring different stories of people perceived to be socially displaced. But as the title of my blog shows, what really is homeless? One definition of homelessness describes it as a condition of people without a regular dwelling. But the problem with that is that now "a regular dwelling" need a definition! Who defines "a regular dwelling?" I would say that definition is null and void. Hence the reason why Kennett (1999) said that meanings are not fixed but are continually contested, formed and re-formed in the context of political, social, cultural and economic struggles. Homelessness is a category which has shifted dramatically over time and space. In other words  it is an historically and culturally specific phenomenon and a relative concept, (Townsend, 1979) where people make judgments about their own deprivation on the basis of what they see around them. Castoriadias describes it this way:

The construction of its own world by each and every society is... the creation of a world of meanings  its social imaginary significations, which organize the natural world, create a social world proper to each society  establish the ways in which socialized and humanized individuals are to be fabricated, and institute the motives, values and hierarchies of social (human) life. (Castoriadis, 1991, p 42)

Thus, how homelessness is understood in each society reflects the ways the society is organised. Part of the difficulty of defining homelessness lies in the concept of 'home' as distinct from 'house'. Houses are relatively easy to reduce to the notion of dwelling, the material of physical structure that provides shelter, but homes are not.Given the traditionally dominant association of women with the family, with the domestic and the private arenas, home is likely to have particularly strong gendered connotations and so also is homelessness. So, when you see this picture, what comes to your mind? Homeless or houseless?