Home as a Region

This essay explores the processes by which place becomes home and examines the characteristics of a home region that distinguish it from other types of regions. In contemporary Western society, weakening human identification with place and with social groups seems to be reducing home to a mere accumu- lation of habits that are elaborations on modern or postmodern lifestyles. A home region is a system of interlinked patterns of habitual association and attachment. However, realization that the world is increasingly interconnected and interde- pendent may produce the backlash of a return to home contexts that are most familiar and intimate. Intense affection for home points to a dialectical relation- ship between the extent of personal or collective homes and attachment to them.