What is Home and How do we Encounter it?
- Šárka Pakostová, PhD Student
- Aug 20, 2015
- 4 min read
My intended area of research is about the complexity of home, identity, belonging, separation from home, and the construct of home. I found home to be an intriguing concept as it is something we all have or long for. The concept of home is frequently “central to the organizing narratives of the Western world since ancient times”(Seiden, 2009, p.199). Lichtenstein (2009), Metari (2005) and Seiden (2009) believed that having a home is a universal human experience about understanding the need of people to feel at home, and to belong; this is essential in psychotherapy. Psychoanalytical literature or multicultural studies predominantly do not focus on the examination of this concept of home.
Personally, I think of home as a dwelling place that looks like a house in a geographical location. Furthermore, my home looks like the majority of brick houses in Bohemia and Moravia, because that is the place of my origin. Lee (1999) wrote about being born into a socio-political, cultural space of dominant narratives (p.3). Hadley (2013) wrote that as we are positioned into its matrix, and we often reflect or interpret our cultural differences through those familiar socio-political lenses (p.374). The concept of ‘home’ seems to be an important building block not just into general research, but also into multiculturalism. As a researcher, I am convinced cultural diversity matters immensely, because culture is about the rights of people. The many different ways of seeing the world, and our place in it, creates foundations to many unique sets of knowing and understanding. This knowing and understanding determines the fabric of our societies and the systems of law. We all need a diverse set of knowledge to be able to cope with issues of today or uncertainties of tomorrow.
I also look at home as a relationship, or the space of internal poetic ‘safe heaven’, and perhaps spiritual space of becoming and unbecoming. As I am questioning my perception of home, I am wondering what is yours? How would you answer the commonly asked, seemingly simple question: where are you from? How similar or different is your idea of home? Seiden (2009) wrote:
home is a place, a time, a family, and a culture. Its story has distinguishable elements: an original home supporting an original, authentic sense of identity; a necessary and inevitable leaving of one’s home (and therefore loss of it) in the service of a new self and new authenticity; an accommodation in which the new must honor the old and incorporate elements of it. (p.199)
In the search for identity we often look to others to tell us that we matter or that we measure up, and we “need to feel that we belong to something bigger than ourselves” (Johnson, 2006, p.4). I am especially interested in the dialog of the concept of home with individuals who experienced a sudden loss of their home or were ripped away from their home due to internal or external forces. Some research has been done with refugees, and emigrant minorities: “understanding immigrant experiences and serving their mental health needs through culturally competent means become imperative” (Erickson Cornish, Schreier, Nadkarni, Henderson Metzger & Rodolfa, 2010, p.117); “to be fully competent in working with minority populations or those clients culturally different from ourselves, it is imperative that American Association for Counseling and Development (AACD) take a proactive stance in incorporating standards of practice that reflect the diversity of our society” (Sue, Arredondo & McDavis, 1992, p.478).
As a clinician and researcher working with minorities – populations facing the challenges of diversity, I must recognize how unevenly powers spread across our societies. I give value to the cultural diversity in questioning ‘home’ and what it upholds for all of humanity. It is, therefore, my responsibility is to create systems that celebrate cultural diversity that explores differences and embraces multiple ways of thinking. As I draw on the worldview and knowledge passed down through diversity, as well as our conventional wisdom, I will be better prepared. My hope is to be the researcher portrayed in Research as resistance: Critical, Indigenous, and anti-oppressive approaches where the researcher is the learner, the not-knower who through empathy, imagination and critical self-awareness comes to grow into a sense of what the Other understands (Brown & Strega, 2005, p.67).
PS. Interestingly, as I dove into my research subject, I had no idea about the fact that the very title of the Czech national anthem is “Kde domov můj?” which translates to “Where is my home?” I heard and sang the anthem many times, yet never before did I give attention to the meaning or significance of the words imbedded in my culture.
References
Brown, L. & Strega, S. (2005). Research as resistance: Critical, Indigenous, and anti-oppressive approaches. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press.
Erickson Cornish, J. A. & Schreier, B. A. & Nadkarni, L. I. & Henderson Metzger, L. & Rodolfa, E. R. (2010). Handbook of multicultural counseling competencies. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Hadley, S. (2013). Dominant narratives: Complicity and the need for vigilance in the creative arts therapies. Arts in Psychotherapy, 40(4), 373-381.
Johnson, G. A. (2006). Privilege, power, and difference. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Lee, M. W.(1999). An introduction to multicultural counseling. Ann Arbor, MI: Edwards Brothers.
Lichtenstein, D. (2009). Born in exile: There is no place like home. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 26(4), 451-458. doi:10.1037/a0017712
Metari, Y. (2005). Bait Lanefesh: Hahipus achar aatzmi aAmiti veamerchav hanafshi [Home for the soul: Searching for the real self and the psychological space]. Moshav Ben Shemen, Israel: Modan Otzaha Laor.
Seiden, H. M. (2009). On the longing for home. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 26(2), 191-205. doi:10.1037/a0015539
Sue, D. W. & Arredondo, P. & McDavis, R. J. (1992). Multicultural Counseling Competencies and Standards: A call to the profession. Journal of Multicultural Counseling & Development, 20(2) 477-486.
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