Corps de l’article

The spaces of home refer to individual but also family spaces on several levels: the domicile; home, which can be imperfectly translated as the neighbourhood; and place of “origin,” on a regional or national scales. These different levels can be linked to what Nicolas Robette calls the temporal dimension of observing places:

For example, over the course of an hour, you will be able to understand practices within a residence; over the course of a day, daily travel within an urban residential area; over several months, dwelling places and residential practices; and over several years, interregional or international migrations (Robette, 2012).

Family settings can also be closer to home, as studied by Catherine Bonvalet and Eva Lelièvre (Bonvalet and Lelièvre, 2005). Several types of places can also be suggested: the place of origin, the place crossed, the place frequented at the time of the research, the anticipated place, and the perceived place. These places make it possible to reconstruct the sequence of geographical areas where the respondents lived throughout their lives (Lelièvre and Imbert, 2002). In fact, the study of home involves focusing on the various temporalities of human existence, i.e. the present daily life, but also personal and family history. Spatial and temporal dimensions connect to a third dimension, the relationships between cohabitants, more precisely, the interactions between spouses and between parents and children. While the spatial, temporal and relational dimensions can be differentiated for the purposes of this analysis, they are always intimately linked with the experiences of individuals.

This issue, through the articles included, seeks to understand how the concept of home contributes to the construction of individual and family identities in contemporary individualistic societies, while taking into account the limits of what can be observed to this function of home.

The proposed concept is part of a perspective that places the individual at the centre – even though the individual is part of a group, particularly a family group – and concerns their experience of the world in which they live and of themselves. This perspective “enhances the sensitivity of the sociological gaze on at least three elements: working on oneself, singularity (uniqueness), and the fact that individuals give themselves a certain consistency” (Martuccelli and Singly, 2009: 92). It postulates a reflexive consciousness: how does the social actor perceive themselves as an individual? How do they distinguish themselves from their family ties? The experience of the self thus implies the consciousness of the self that resides in the “I:” “As soon as there is consciousness, there is a subject that thinks it is distinct from all that is not it, a subject that says ‘I’” (Durkheim, 1903: 151) . This compilation focuses more specifically on the idea of home as a space that contributes to the construction of an “individualized individual,” where each member of the family group could be considered as such, especially in contemporary individualistic societies. The conditions of this “I” are embodied in the requirement to have a space of one’s own, while being among others . Thus, the home can be regarded as the foundation for the construction of an “I,” of a personal identity, of the autonomy of an individual, of their self-empowerment, and of their relationship to space (Simard and Savoie, 2009).

In family, marital and intergenerational cohabitation, the construction of home is played out in interactions with other family members who also have their own constructions and conceptions of home. These constructions and conceptions are shaped by the individual’s position in the family order (e.g. place in the family group, age, gender), producing differentiated and sometimes non-symmetrical relationships. In fact, for young adults living with their parents, home is defined by three “homes”: “at my home,” [1] “at my parents’ home,” and “at our home” (Ramos, 2002) . These three concepts of “home” are applicable to any other home situation. The first refers to personal spaces. The second concerns the rules and laws that govern cohabitation and the space where home is located, in which case it is defined by statutory and hierarchical factors, where the individual has a place assigned by their status. The third is embodied by belonging and a place within a group or a community where the individual is seen as an equal. While the first “home” is central to the process of individualization, so are the other two, which leads, on the one hand, to exposing the limits of “home,” and on the other hand, to the question of including the individual into the group, especially the family.

“At my home”: the construction of personal spaces and their limits

Home [2] as a personal space contributes to the formation of the “I.” In the representations of individuals, this personal space is often described as having its own qualities and as being conducive to the expression of individual identity, but subject to certain conditions.

Self-expression in personal spaces

Pascal Dreyer looks at the motivations of older and very old people to remain in their homes “until the end of their lives” [3] (Dreyer, 2017). Based on research conducted on this subject (Delsalle, 2013, 2016), he identifies four of them: “freedom, comfort, well-being and risk-taking.” According to Dreyer, “We stay at home because we are free to do what we want, how we want and when we want. Because we experience a level of comfort that has been patiently developed over the years: the dwelling space has been designed to fit as closely as possible with our living habits and ways of doing things. Reciprocally, the body has been transformed by contact with these spaces to the point of melting into them. We also stay at home because we experience a unique sense of well-being; for example, we can enjoy a type of rest that we rarely find elsewhere. Lastly, we want to stay at home because we can take risks there without putting ourselves at risk” (Dreyer, 2017: 10). The first motivation cited is freedom, the freedom to do what you want in your own custom-built home, where one can experience comfort, well-being and security. These feelings and the attraction of home are not only experienced by older people. In a survey of home and crossing one’s threshold, Jean-Claude Kaufmann gives a detailed description of the sensations experienced by some of his respondents, such as Mrs. O. When she returned to her home, Mrs. O. “ felt as if she had immersed herself in a warm bath” as soon as she stepped through the door, immediately enveloped by a perception of well-being and rest (Kaufmann, 1996 : 287) .

If home allows you the freedom to do what you want, it must also appear as a space that allows you the “freedom to be.” At home, we want to be free to do what we want and to be who we want, or rather to be who we are. Here, the concept of home makes possible the manifestation of the authenticity, the intimacy of the person. It is as if at home, in one’s personal space, one could avoid playing a role, not be on display and thus be “natural.” The article by Félix Duclaux Habit Tankeu and Honoré Mimche in this issue discusses this possibility of being oneself at home. The authors examine situations of intergenerational cohabitation in Cameroon, using the example of couples who host the mother of a spouse for an extended stay. They provide many extracts from interviews with their respondents supporting the idea that home allows them to express their authenticity, but in the situation analyzed by the authors, is threatened by the presence of a mother-in-law.

Creating limits in my home

Home is often represented as a specific space with limits. Separation devices, such as doors, locks and keys (Kaufmann, 1996), and intermediate areas such as thresholds (Rosselin, 1995), mark the boundaries between home and away from home, inside and outside, the private (Serfaty-Garzon, 2003) and public spheres. These markers both protect the inside from outside intrusion and guarantee one’s freedom to act and to be inside (Zielinski, 2015). The dwelling door “closely guarded when closed, symbolizes a fundamental existential limit: the entrance to the intimate and sacred domain of the home” (Kaufmann, 1996), and, one might add, to the self. Perla Serfaty-Garzon describes this private sphere, or privacy, as follows:

… a demand for respect of the domestic domain by society. (…) It is embodied in an acute awareness of the existence of an individual inner space which the subject must always defend against the intrusions of that society. The private sphere is thus a distancing force from the outside world, since it is perceived as always open to intrusion from the interior and from the family, and places the subject under guardianship. ( Ibid .: 69-70)

Being free at home means having the power to set one’s own rules. In contrast, this specificity is revealed in situations where individuals do not have such power. The work of Élodie Jouve and Pascale Pichon (Jouve et Pichon, 2015; Pichon, 2019) examines the residential and welfare trajectories of the homeless. They show how institutional accommodation and supported housing do not encourage the construction of a home or self-expression in such a home “given that access to a place to live remains hypothetical and that social support for what attached each person to others, to (domestic) animals, to places, to things, comes up against the standards of institutions” ( ibid .: 48). In these emergency and transitional shelters, people do not have the power to either do what they want or to be who they want, as the rules of the place are governed by the institution. From this perspective, the homeless are not at home, although they may “feel” at home in some respects, but only to a certain extent. For the author, this paradox underlines “a frequent position taken by social workers (which) highlights the risk that attachment to place compromises the desire to leave the institution” (Pichon, 2019: 78) and the desire to build a real home elsewhere. Odile Macchi and Nicolas Oppenchaim (2019) focus on another population, teenagers who grow up in a hotel room. [4] Here again, young people are confronted with the rules of the place (regulations on the use and appropriation of the room, on the right of outside people to visit the hotel, and on the use of common spaces) which make it difficult for them to make their room home. Moreover, the hotel room is a small space that the teenager shares with all the family members. This makes it challenging, if not impossible, to build a personal space of autonomous and free self-expression, distinct from the family space.

Several articles in this issue show how these personal spaces are delimited, protected and negotiated in order to be or to remain a place of self-expression.

Let’s review the article by Félix Duclaux Habit Tankeu and Honoré Mimche. For Cameroonian couples, the long-term presence of a spouse’s mother threatens the individualization of the couple and can interfere with their relationship and marital intimacy. Out of respect for the parent and to preserve their privacy, spouses modify their interactions according to the spaces in the house. Romantic expression no longer has a real place in the spaces shared with the parent and the rest of the family (the children). If necessary, it is transposed to the conjugal bedroom, which becomes the delimited space of the marital home. The article analyzes how the house consists of different spaces, delimited by their particular uses and appropriations, to which each person must conform. In this context:

for couples in intergenerational cohabitation, the bedroom becomes the privileged space of expression and conjugal intimacy to the detriment of the other rooms in the house, because, as a space respected by others to have limited access to it, it is not judged by them as a collective space “open to all.” (Berthou, 2012)

The bedroom, this place in the marital home, has physical boundaries: walls, doors that enclose it and protect its occupants from the eyes of other family members ... but not always from their ears.

In their article, Noé Klein, Chiara Piazzesi, and Hélène Belleau explore the concept of home through the perspective of doing laundry to reveal the organization and spatio-temporal delimitations within Quebec households. The authors point out that doing laundry has been gradually privatized within the family sphere and show how it powerfully marks the separation between the outside and the inside of the home, between the public and the private. The residents of a dwelling try to hide laundry activities from their guests, as the presence or absence of laundry is a key element of self-presentation. For the authors, “the separation between home and the outside world is also manifested through underwear.” People change their clothes when they return home, preferring clothes that are more comfortable than those worn outside. These ‘comfy’ indoor clothes are a particular indicator of the spatial distinction between the home and the outside world.”

The article follows the trajectory of laundry within the home, tracking its cycle from dirty, to clean, to stowed, in order to reveal its spatial and temporal organization in a more intimate way. There are laundry areas: “dedicated areas,” i.e. spaces for storing laundry, whether personal or collective (wardrobes, cupboards, chests of drawers, baskets of dirty laundry, etc.); “exclusion areas,” “where the presence of laundry is undesirable” and “reprieve areas,” “where the presence of laundry is tolerated.” The creation of these areas and their boundaries results from interactions and negotiations. For the authors, “the term ‘boundary’ designates an operation of demarcation, which generates a social space (interaction, link, group, community, institution) as an organized set of meanings.” These “laundry areas” can also be seen as “areas” of home: from individual spaces to family spaces that clash, overlap, and differ. They allow us to perceive the actors' strategies in claiming certain individualized spaces, such as wardrobes or closets for storing personal clothing. The cupboard can become one’s own corner, the expression of an individual “home” of one's intimate self.

Another article in this issue reveals the existence of micro-places that support home. Sandra Gaviria studies young people who return to their parents’ home after living on their own. She investigates the evolution of the sense of home in these circumstances by looking at how these young people resettle (or not). It appears that the reappropriation of the place is not done, or only to a limited extent: they do not move back in, nor do they redecorate the room they were assigned (sometimes they return to their childhood room, but not always), thus demonstrating their desire not to linger in the parental home. For Sandra Gaviria, these attitudes show the desire not to make a new home: their return must be as short as possible and a temporary experience. It is also a self-protective tactic, as “having a perception of ‘home’ (...) would indicate a sense of failure in their personal trajectory.” This is why the moving boxes full of personal belongings are not unpacked: as if they were holding on to their “real home,” a place of freedom, authenticity and intimacy, ready to be launched when they are on their own again. Thus “the space of home does not necessarily correspond to the space that, strictly speaking, we call a house” (Vassart, 2006). Following the example of work on the homeless (Margier, 2014; Pichon, 2002) or on the use of cell phones in the construction of home for people living in migrant workers’ hostels (Guérin, 2019), Sandra Gaviria's article, like that of Noé Klein et al ., shows how this home can become a nest, determined by the action of an individual, in particular spaces.

The pitfalls of home

This personal space called home cannot be described without discussing its threats and pitfalls. It is as if this home, the expected place of freedom, authenticity, intimacy, could turn against us. Several articles in this issue explore this line of analysis.

The challenges of home

This is the purpose of Valérie Sacriste’s article, which questions the symbols associated with home. From the outset, she points out that “home is not a stable and reassuring refuge forever. On the contrary, there are many moments in life when it turns into a source of anxiety and complexity.” To support her argument, Sacriste outlines four phases in the relationship to the dwelling space: moving in, settling in, managing and losing. She studies the interactions between the individual and the dwelling and reports on the relationship between the inhabitant and the inhabited space during these four phases, highlighting what can obstruct the feeling of home. She describes a number of “challenges” (Martuccelli, 2006) of home which, when experienced, can have a strong impact on the feeling of “being at home,” as they impact on the construction and experience of the self. Sacriste connects housing challenges to various phases and challenges that can lead to four categories of reaction: destabilization of the self, detachment of the self, exhaustion of the self, and destruction of the self.

When home becomes a place of retreat

Clément Reversé examines the sense of home among young people from rural areas and working classes in France. He describes in detail how the characteristics of the local region make it less and less possible for them to feel that they belong, to be part of the “neighbourhood,” which leads them to withdraw into the family home. Reversé analyzes the mechanisms of withdrawal into this “cocoon” caused by the lack of acceptance within the “neighbourhood.” He studies the effects of withdrawal when there is only this home in which to be oneself. While this cocoon may protect young people from the outside world, it also provides them a space – albeit limited – for self-development. In some cases, family spaces are places of misunderstanding, conflict, and even violence; places where self-affirmation is not always possible, as in the example of a young lesbian who is constantly mocked and harassed by her family members. Sandra Gaviria’s article contrasts the example of young people who do not want to put down roots, so as not to give in: the young people she met do not want to settle down or to cocoon themselves. Through them, we see how withdrawing into this home can discredit the individual. The home is no longer a vehicle for self-development, but a space for discrediting oneself, a space for others.

When home no longer makes sense

Christophe Humbert’s article concerns the aging-in-place of older people who need assistance (family and/or professional) in order to continue living in their residence. It examines the effects of such interventions on an older person’s sense of home. The home may no longer be a “bulwark” against the outside world and may be “invaded” by those called upon to assist. By their presence and intervention, the latter can set new rules for living. Humbert emphasises the ambiguity of attachment to the home in constrained situations, which undermine the continuity of identity. He envisages two specific models: one in which home attachment involves an uncertain identity and one in which identity is precarious. It is as though the sense of home has become diluted and impoverished. Individuals can no longer negotiate with this “home” a “function as a place of socialization and privacy, thus remaining a safe space ” (Milligan, 2009). Although in the situations studied by Christophe Humbert, caregivers can pose as a threat to the home, they can also act as devices to maintain continuity with previous life, so that the home remains a home. Other factors considered in the analysis involve the interpersonal dimension in the experience of home and of self.

When being at our home is a constraint on being at home: the double “us” between assignment and belonging

In this concept, home is always linked to being at our home, where the individual has two mindsets and could be described as constantly negotiating between the statutory “I” and the “I” of belonging.

In the model of the three “homes,” “at our home” corresponds to the second and third aspects: “at my parent's home” corresponds to the rules and laws governing cohabitation, defined by legal and hierarchical parameters; and “at our home” is characterized by family conviviality. “At our home” denotes belonging, where the individual feels part of the group and is considered an equal. Thus, the individual has a place within the group and among the generations (as the “spouse,” “son/daughter of,” “father/mother of,” etc.), a place that can be assigned or self-assigned. This aspect generally reflects the family structure and the hierarchy of places and relationships. The individual is also a partner in a reciprocal relationship where relatives -- regardless of their position, age or gender -- enter into a more equal relationship. This raises the question of the status of our home in the construction of home. The various contributions in this issue highlight how our home acts as a constraint on “ my home.” Using various perspectives, the articles describe the family as a paradoxical instance of validation of the individual through its dual function of assignment and belonging. For convenience, we will identify two aspects as being assigned and belonging to our home . The former refers to the rules for managing daily life, time and domestic space, while the latter situates the individual within the group and acts as an anchor. Depending on the situations and interactions, the “I” mobilized can be the statutory “I” or the “I” that belongs. Let us now examine the articulation of belonging feature that is central to the construction of home in the contributions selected for this issue.

Roles within the couple: women are usually responsible for doing the family’s laundry

The paradigm of being assigned at our home is prominent in the article on laundry, which looks at the spatial and temporal structure of “home” and the interpersonal processes of laundry care within the couple and the family. As seen previously, based on the laundry cycle, the authors report on the different ways in which it is managed by category; the spatio-temporal handling of laundry by area (dedicated, exclusionary, intermediate), as well as its frequency, distribution, rhythm, and pace. The authors also show a gender-based differentiation. Despite discussions between spouses and attempts to share this task equally, an imbalance is observed, where women commonly do most of the family laundry in their homes. [5] One event that significantly exacerbates this differentiation is the birth of children. In this way, laundry plays a role in the spatio-temporal construction of placement or assignment, making it difficult for the home to function as a space that fosters individual identity. Doing laundry delimits spaces between spouses and designates a gender differentiation that leads to the emergence and reinforcement of boundaries. Laundry activities, although to a certain extent unchanging, result in the creation, reinforcement and modification of boundaries: the notion of home emerges from “the recurrent task of demarcating and differentiating spaces, moments, activities in the daily life cycle of society’s actors who inhabit this home.” Family members contribute differently to establishing and reinforcing the boundaries of the home, organizing the time and space within it, and maintaining boundaries between the self and the other. Although we may create niches of individualization – for example, the alternate placement of a couple’s personal belongings in a vertical storage unit for the convenience of both parties – “the person responsible for the spillover” remains identified.

When the impoverishment of conversation defines parent/child relationships in a statutory manner

Anaïs Mary’s article investigates the unusual stay-at-home situation of one family member in a particular situation: the stay-at-home mother during the cycle of her cancer treatments. The mother's presence at home appears to disrupt relationships by reinforcing the statutory “we” in which parent/child relationships are played out in an unequal hierarchy. The author shows how cancer reorganizes temporal, spatial and relational maps. For teenagers, from the mother’s point of view, having “ a mom at home is great... except that it's not. ” The author questions the mother’s role in “ensuring the development of children and the quality of the relationship they have with their mother.” While the home can be seen as a space for individual development, this concept highlights how the presence of the mother in the home can act as a barrier to empowerment and the formation of individual identities, both for children and mothers.

Teenagers can perceive a mother’s presence as a hindrance to testing the waters in their home and to spending time on their own. In this situation, the dwelling may appear as a “sad shelter” due to the mother’s state of health, and she may encourage the child to go outside. In addition, she may over-invest in safeguarding her child’s education, assigning them the status of “student” and “son or daughter of” (Singly, 2006). These aspects lead to a withdrawal of young people into the bedroom or outside the house, thus reconfiguring the usual space. By withdrawing into these spaces, they withdraw from a relationship that specifically defines them in legal terms and places too much emphasis on the fact that they are someone’s son or daughter.

For the author, the challenge is to find the “right balance” by reshuffling the cards of statutory and individual identities, which involves a re-hierarchisation of self-definitions: choosing “young person” over “student,” so as not to place too much importance on being the “son or daughter of”; privileging “friend” and leaving behind the status of “mother.” The “right balance” would thus be defined by a reasonable emphasis on the statutory we, choosing the “we” of kinship option. However, when the discussion focuses on the core of the equal relationship, and this relationship is lacking, the author notes that the discussion is diminished, that it is difficult to maintain the second “at our home” , a condition for the construction of an individualizing home.

When the statutory concept of being at our home includes belonging at our home

Christophe Humbert reflects on the notion of relational autonomy in which the other constitutes a resource for an “individualized individual.” He postulates that, in a situation of a loss of autonomy, the at-our-home assignment can include the idea of belonging. It is worth repeating that Humbert is interested in the aging-in-place of older people and care taking defined somewhere between autonomy support and normalizing control, by discussing the risk of confinement in the home when it becomes “an extension of the institution” (Djaoui, 2017). He highlights the ambiguity of attachment to the residence in situations described as limits: the “uncertain” identity of the domicile and the “insecure” identity of the domicile. Drawing on the actor-network theory, he studies “attachments that bind and affect, while forming the subject” (Latour, 2000), the subject being conceived as caught in a system. In this situation, caregivers can pose a threat to the home, but they can also facilitate continuity with previous life and allow the home to remain a home. The relationship is less a conversational tool in which another family member can offer support to validate personal identities – such as keeping mothers at home during their cancer treatments – than a tool in which synchronous and historical temporal dimensions are fundamental. The former refers to a daily life maintained through social and material arrangements that support autonomy. The latter relates to the timelines and the past, a long period shared especially with a spouse. In these cases, where the domicile is identified as an uncertain or insecure place, the challenge of sustaining the broken continuity of the home and its ambiguous identity is at stake. This article highlights how, in a situation of loss of autonomy, being assigned at our home can safeguard a place that creates one’s home at our home, with the other becoming an intermediary of the home. However, when one’s very home is affected, home no longer supports identity. In this case, the temporal dimension is significant. Caregivers and third-parties make it possible to support the individual in their daily life within the dwelling, as the subject is no longer able to maintain the link they used to have to the place: the family intermediary then allows the benefit of this past status to be maintained, where being oneself is no more than being supported by the other.

The statutory concept of being at our home and the undermining of the sense of belonging

Autonomy is difficult for a population marked by the absence of career path and social and civic involvement. Based on her investigations into the clandestine migration of young Algerians, Rim Otmani shows how their difficulties in finding employment lead to a social and identity repositioning in a home, which she describes as repulsive and exclusive. Young Algerians find themselves in an uncomfortable “in-between” situation, neither quite “inside” and not quite “outside.” Otmani emphasizes the complexity and instability of the situation in Algeria on the political, economic and social levels, which make it difficult for young people to become social actors in the society to which they belong. They describe this state as “the emptiness [that] is killing us,” signifying “political, economic, social, cultural, individual, emotional and temporal emptiness.” This experience of self (Ramos, 2016) also undermines the sense of belonging and inclusion in Algerian society. For the author, this “emptiness” expresses the feeling of no longer feeling at home. Home thus represents an existential void with three dimensions: without a place , a professional exclusion that contributes to a feeling of abandonment and social rejection; without myself , a psychological home where the “emptiness of self” evokes a feeling of non-existence that leads to a loss of self-worth and of self-confidence; and without time , a home that designates the temporal notion where “empty-time” is a dead and useless time.

While the family can act as a place of withdrawal and attachment in this situation, the feeling of being a burden can complicate the protective and supportive function of the family. In this sense, the statutory home certainly fulfills its function of solidarity, but young people are dependent on it residentially, materially, and financially at an age when they aspire to independence. We can thus identify two aspects of the statutory place: the “child of” referring to the filial connection, and the “child” understood as an age category. In a way, these vulnerable young people define themselves by exception: they are adults in neither society nor family. Consequently, the identity-building function of the family as the instrument for building autonomy by recognizing the child as an equal (Ramos, 2002), and which is played out through belonging to the family, is also undermined. As the author points out, under these conditions, identity through geographical, social, family or professional belonging is no longer sufficient to maintain social ties. As a result, a feeling of not belonging and otherness develops among young Algerians: the feeling of exclusion and insecurity that an individual experiences in the place where they don’t feel at home, puts them in a state outside of self and place. Otmani also analyzes how those concerned seek to invent a new, positive and constructive home for themselves, supported by the creation of new affiliations that are no longer familial, but elective among friends sharing the same characteristics of exclusion. It is a question of a home invented in Algeria, at the margins of society, or a dream and fantasy home on the other side of the Mediterranean, realized through illegal migration. But neither case will contribute to a better social recognition of these individuals.

Conclusion: The imbalance of the three “homes”

The question of home should be considered from two angles: the relationship of the single inhabitant to home and the relationship of the inhabitant withothers in the home. In this second aspect, there is a tension between the sense of autonomy and the sense of belonging to a group. Being a member of the group, which we translate as being at our home, has two dimensions: at our home assignment and at our home belonging. In this sense, at our home is a constraint on the concept of being at home, and the family seems to be a paradoxical instance of validation of the individual. Thus, the family has a dual function: making it possible to be oneself (promoting personal spaces and validating individual dimensions of identity) and acknowledging that each member belongs to the group and has a place in it . Belonging to the group and having a place in it leads to an ongoing challenge: creating and maintaining the right separation between the individual identities and the family identities of the members of the group.

Thus, home participates in the construction of the individual, both in terms of individual and family identity. Home constitutes a valuable perspective in this construction, which links the past, present and future: having been, being and becoming. The iterative movement between home and identity is significant to the formation of the individual and of their place in the family group. Although the more individual dimension of home is widely analyzed as one’s own space, it is always articulated in relation to a two-dimensional home. The first dimension is statutory, bringing different ages and generations into the group. Positions are imposed on individuals by assignment, but they can take ownership of them, and designate themselves as spouses, sons or daughters of, parents, etc. This aspect makes it possible to expose the guiding principles that individuals have laid down in thoughtful discussions, confirming their experiences and conduct. In some ways, everyone stays in their place : the places are constructed from the outside, imposed on them, and they accommodate them - or not - by constructing or deconstructing them. The second dimension of our home is the feeling of belonging to the group, which takes precedence over being first and foremost an individual : feeling part of the group. This dimension is characterized by familial conviviality. It brings us back to the importance of conversation in the construction of this us (Berger et Kellner, 1988; Singly, 2016). Relationships, regardless of gender, age or generation, are built on an equal footing. The group members are interlocutors, at the centre is the discussion, and everyone participates in the formation of the group as an egalitarian relationship: Each person has a place .

The limits to the individualization of the concept of home emerge when an imbalance exists among these three “homes ” , personal spaces, assignment at our home and belonging at our home. In one example, when the mother is too present in the home and does not give her teenagers enough space of their own or when the conversation is limited, and only the second “home” can be in play. In a second example, when the wife is assigned for doing the laundry, especially with the birth of children, and the concepts of “at home” and “belonging within our home” have little place in the personal home. In a third example, belonging within our home, which protects, can also result in a forced withdrawal to the family or “the neighbourhood” as a local territory. And further, the statutory and belonging concept of being at our home can be affected and individuals are forced to migrate in order to find places for subsistence but also for self-construction. All these situations, studied in the contributions to this issue, reflect an imbalance in the three “homes,” which limit the individualizing function of the home: to be oneself is also to be with others , the place is relational (Ramos, 2018) . The study of home thus brings out relational boundaries in intimate and family situations. The analysis of negotiations - or lack of negotiations - of these boundaries highlights the importance of developing a concept that examines the trajectories of the self, taking into account the reversibility of identity corresponding to situations and interactions.