Where Should Care Be Given and Received?

Abstract

At the moment of writing these lines, I have been living away from my country of birth for almost ten years. Every time I travel back to my home country, I tell people I’m going home. After spending a week or two with my family and friends, I again announce that in a couple of days I’m flying back home. This story is far from unique. Many people, and not only those with experience of international migration, share these sentiments. When we are asked where we consider home, we often struggle to give a clear answer. Home is always the place of birth; Icanhave two/three/four homes; home is where I feel safe and comfortable are some of the answers with which we try to express the fluidity of the concept of home in our daily lives. However, in all our negotiations with and considerations of the question of which place should be called home, we hardly ever challenge the significance and relevance of the concept of ‘home’ itself. Even though we might often reject calling one particular house our home, we do not reject the idea of home altogether. Home, in both its macro version of a country or a region and its micro version of a particular house or family, is always constructed as something to be wanted, to be longed for (Duyvendak, 2011). Home has a particularly important meaning in our everyday life.