-Tactics and Concepts for Highly Mobile People

solid platform. Home is a safe place and it is where identity is formed (Hooks, 1990). In
that way home is an empowering place of the people living there. When people loose their
home, they become dislocated which disrupts the self-­‐continuity and they try to re-­‐
establish new bonds and roots in the new place they move to (Kleine & Baker, 2004).
Possessions work as representation of places and homes. Research by Kleine and Baker
(Kleine & Baker, 2004) show how people who loose their home can easier adapt to a new
place when having artifacts that represent their lost home. In that way home is
established with support from possessions that point towards a remote place that they
relate to. Material objects or possessions play an important role in relation to home. They
work as social linkage to other people as well as a tool for differentiating self from others
(Wallendorf & Arnould, 1988). Tuan (Tuan, 1980)states that to a large degree we are
what we posses, where having and being are central modes of our existence (REF Sartre’s
(1943)). This is supported by Belk (R. W. Belk, 1988), who argues that possessions
become an extension of the self. He furthermore describes how people use possessions as
storage for memories. This relates back to the findings about people who lost their homes
and thus used the possessions to establish a sense of home in the new place.
This dissertation builds upon a notion of home that is experienced through a range of
characteristics that are extracted from the above literature review. I have selected the
characteristics of home to be:
Physicality is the place in itself that makes it possible to experience home (Bachelard &
Jolas, 1994). It is the way that we physically invest ourselves in the home.
Warmth concerns the friendly atmosphere that Sandy G. Smith (Smith, 1994) points
towards as one of the essential qualities of experiencing home.
Nostalgia is founded on the memories that we have from home and a feeling at home is
established by going back to good memories (Bachelard & Jolas, 1994).
Regenerate is establishing a sense of home through relaxation and filling up the
batteries. Bachelard points to home as a place to regenerate (Bachelard & Jolas, 1994).
Possessions reflect feeling at home through artifacts. In that way the artifacts are used
for establishing feeling at home and the artifacts becomes representations of a sense of
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