The Right to Home: Exploring How Space, Culture, and Identity Intersect with Disparities

Description

This book explores how the design characteristics of homes can support or suppress individuals’ attempts to create meaning in their lives, which in turn, impacts well-being and delineates the production of health, income, and educational disparities within homes and communities. According to the author, the physical realities of living space—such as how kitchen layouts restrict cooking and the size of social areas limits gatherings with friends, or how dining tables can shape aspirations—have a salient connection to the beliefs, culture, and happiness of the individuals in the space. The book’s purpose is to examine the human capacity to create meaning and to rally home mediators (scholars, educators, design practitioners, policy makes, and advocates) to work toward Culturally Enriched Communities in which everyone can thrive. The volume includes stories from Hmong, Somali, Mexican, Ojibwe, and African American individuals living in Minnesota to show how space intersects with race, gender, citizenship, ability, religion, and ethnicity, positing that social inequalities are partially spatially constructed and are, therefore, malleable. Front Matter ....Pages i-xv Introduction: Oikophilia (Tasoulla Hadjiyanni)....Pages 1-16 The “and” (Tasoulla Hadjiyanni)....Pages 17-41 Hmong Stories: “Only in the house do your dead ancestors live” (Tasoulla Hadjiyanni)....Pages 43-86 Somali Stories: “I hope God will not isolate me from my community” (Tasoulla Hadjiyanni)....Pages 87-133 Mexican Stories: “I can talk to her and she listens” (Tasoulla Hadjiyanni)....Pages 135-184 Ojibwe Stories: “When the traditions are lost, it is like a person who has no identity” (Tasoulla Hadjiyanni)....Pages 185-223 African American Stories: “To be self-sufficient and responsible in society” (Tasoulla Hadjiyanni)....Pages 225-272 Moving Forward (Tasoulla Hadjiyanni)....Pages 273-313 Back Matter ....Pages 315-332