What does home mean? Is it related to a sense of belonging? What, if any, is the connection between the two?
And who are we? Whose thoughts are you reading?
This blog is written by 4 different scholars: Dr. Rita A. Gardiner, Dr. Katy Fulfer, Harshita Jaiprakash, and Janet Jones. We are a diverse group of scholars. Some of us are interested in bioethics, some in feminist theories, some in education, and some in drug addiction. But we are all intrigued by Hannah Arendt.
During the past year(s), we have puzzled over questions of what ‘home’ means and what it might mean to belong. These are our answers. They are meant to reveal who we are and our connection to the story, as much as to provide a partial answer to some of the questions above.
Dr. Rita A. Gardiner (Western University)
“To be a Jew belongs for me to the indisputable facts of my life, and I have never had the wish to change or disclaim facts of this kind.” So wrote Hannah Arendt to Gershom Scholem, as part of a heated exchange of letters regarding her controversial book on Eichmann.
Arendt’s words made me reflect upon my own bifurcated sense of belonging. Born of Irish and English parentage, I am a bifurcated soul made more so by the fact I have lived in Canada for two decades. This bifurcated sense of belonging captures some of my confusion, as I emerge from hours watching the latest Brexit debates. This debate has little connection to my everyday life but much to do with a deeper sense of identity.
Identity is a complex concept. And Arendt’s provocative ideas that we are born into a particular identity is something the Trans community might quarrel with. But her idea that who we are is something more than our ethnicity [or any other singular aspect of our givenness] is worth considering, especially as it relates to questions of belonging.
It would seem that for Arendt we can, at one and the same time, belong and not belong. To feel we belong to part of a broader community and yet resist the temptation that one part of identity represents who we are.
For Arendt, it is our connections with particular others than matter most. Friendship over family; community over nationhood. Ever the provocateur, she pushes us to think deeply about notions of belonging, and how these ideas not only affect, but shape our sense of self.
Dr. Katy Fulfer (University of Waterloo)
I usually spend a portion of my Saturdays with the local Food Not Bombs (FNB) chapter. Whenever someone describes FNB as “volunteer work,” I hesitate. That term doesn’t quite capture my experience of FNB as a community-building project, a way of sharing public space with others, many of whom I would not have met were it not for FNB. We share a meal in front of City Hall, made from produce that has been donated because it is deemed unfit to be sold, then whipped into delicious soups by FNB. What isn’t used but is good is given away.
Hannah Arendt’s thinking on home and belonging helps me articulate why I care so much about FNB, which in turn probably explains why I’ve never been able to get Arendt out of my head. One meaning of “home” for Arendt is that the world is a home for humanity. Many of us don’t experience public space as a way to be together with others, especially as public space is becoming dominated by private interests. For me, Arendt captures the necessity for us to cultivate opportunities for speaking and acting together, acts which create and maintain our shared world.
At the same time, I’ve always been struck by the importance of Arendt’s public/private distinction. For Arendt we cannot appear in public all the time. Between the four walls of our private homes we are able to rest from public appearance. This claim too I think is necessary in our current world, where so much of our private lives is shared in public (or pseudo-public) ways. Returning to Arendt is an encouragement to stop and think about how I might be giving up needed privacy. It’s also an invitation to think about how some people don’t have access to private space and are thereby denied this retreat.
Harshita (Hershey) Jaiprakash (doctoral student, Western University)
What is it to be at home? Is it to negate the status of statelessness? Or, of rootlessness? Does it involve feelings of belonging?
My interest in Arendt’s notions of home and belonging stem from her notion of the who – the individual whose uniqueness is asserted through her speech and deed. The emergence of the the who is contingent upon and is actualized within the space of the public. For, to be a who entails that one is acknowledged by a community; that one’s personhood is legitimized. A who cannot show herself authentically if she lacks a community and if her opportunities for action are squashed.
Furthermore, for Arendt, for a who to have a community entails having a sense of belonging which is shared amongst others. That is, a phenomenological space exists within which individuals are able to experience and participate in a common arena. The importance of home and belonging to Arendt’s theory of action and the self is that it situates us, humanity, as beings in-the-world, as Arendt’s amour, Heidegger, would say.
My relationship with Arendt is in hopes of further understanding the constitution of the existential self, as a who. Her rich depiction of what it truly means to feel a sense of home and belonging shifts the understanding of selfhood and identity towards more holistic, socially-constituted conceptualizations. This can serve the purpose of emancipating marginalized groups, such as refugees, or identifying distinct political actors, such as leaders. Arendt offers a promising vision for the future of social justice.
Janet Jones (doctoral student, University of Waterloo)
Before I came to this project, my knowledge of Hannah Arendt was limited. It was therefore a real treat for me to read Arendt and find myself in what feels like a new world. I suppose it is better to say a new way of seeing the world. Arendt’s work is in political philosophy and phenomenology – not metaphysics – and yet her writing inspires feelings of María Lugones-esque world-travelling. I have felt, on more than one occasion, that Arendt’s work paves the way for us to find our home in the world.
Surprisingly, Arendt has said little on what home actually means and what it means to belong. These two words appear far more frequently in Arendt’s interpreters and Arendtian scholarship. But I’m hooked. There’s something about this that needs researching, clarifying, explaining. And I want to do that. I want to know how Arendt thinks we can find our home in a world full of others.
My interest in questions of home and belonging ties into my own research. My doctoral project looks at the public’s perception of drug dependency and drug users. I am currently investigating how those conceptions, so often stale stereotypes left over from decades past, impede the ability of persons with addiction to build and maintain relationships with others. In short, how can they feel a sense of belonging in their community despite the stigma of addiction? What would it take for them to feel like misconceptions about them as drug users aren’t impeding their ability to be seen and recognized as they want to be? What would it take for them to feel at home? I hope that I can figure this out – with Hannah’s help.
Credits
We are grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for supporting this research.
The feature photo is by Photo by Jen P. on Unsplash.