Identifying a place as home starts with the question of ‘what makes this place home for a person?’ Common sense would tell us that the feeling of ‘home’ is experienced both through material and immaterial factors. For many people, a sense of home is gained through belongings, for example your own apartment with your personal decorations and your DVD collection. At the same time, home is where you belong to a family, a social group, and a culture; where you speak your native language; and where you spent the most time of your life.
However, what if you are a highly mobile expatriate, who is constantly moving around and changing places? Going on an assignment makes an expatriate leave behind most of his/her belongings; to some extent detach him-/herself from family, friends and home-based colleagues; and settle into a new culture and society. Adjusting to these changes and converting the new reality into a new home is probably very difficult and time consuming.
Hence, may we argue that highly mobile expatriates don’t attach any sense of home to the different places they travel to? Is it Fact or Fiction?
Have a look at some evidence.
As far as I’ve seen, it’s a fact. My father is traveling many times a year for his work, but he never called anywhere home. Even when we moved to another country for two years we always refered to the original country as home.
Nadav
Yes Sreiche, I would agree on that for a highly expatriate mover it becomes quite hard to adjust himself into a new culture and society and even it is more harder to concern that place as home so i believe it works as a fact for them or we can say that they have to accept it as fact. For me personally every place where I can find some peace and freedom of doing anything, will be mostly like home.
A home has to be a place where you live and have your family and own collection of personal collections etc. However in regards to individuals that are constantly on the travel I suppose they would call their place of residence a ‘House’. A home and house are totally different…well at least to me. A home is more personal and a place you feel safe in your own surroundings whereas a house is just a place that meets the requirements of having 4 walls and a roof over your head.
I agree with Nadav. I have travel all over the world and haven’t been back to the place I was born, in over 20 years. But, I still call my place of birth home, even though i really cant remember all that much about it.
Again, wonderful work!