2.2.1. The Activity of Homing
“Homing” is primary defined by Winther (2009). It means a none-place, the acts of making specific places feel self-belonging in life. He categorized the concepts of home as two axes: Static to mobile, Mentality to Tactility (fig 2.1). It split into four home meaning which are home as a place: a general understood as a place reserved for people, Home as an idea: multiple ideas attached to cultural aspect and ideological construction, to feel at home: the mood to feel at home, and homing: an activity that continuous making, to achieve comfort even though away from origin-home.
The meaning of homing in the research study based on mobile and tactility axis, which refer to people who live in mobile life and necessary to put homing into action in order to feel
self-belonging in new residence. Petersen et al. (2010) proposed seven tactics for homing for mobile people when they away from home, which are territorializing, bubbling, outboxing, connecting, differentiating, doubling, and rhythming.
Territorializing. Territorializing is a physical way of making traces, showing life that people lived,
such as dropping things on specific location, or display where they are. This phenomenon is ableFigure 2.1 The concept of home (Winther, 2009)
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to create a sense of presence to others in both original home and new residence.
Bubbling. Bubbling is a way of excluding the outside disturbances. It is to isolate oneself and
make people concentrated on one thing without the limitation of space and location, such as phone talking and music listening. It is a behavior of “copying” what people usually do when continuously on the move. It may less feel at home by bubbling, but it reduces the feeling of strangeness when people went into a new environment.Outboxing. Outboxing represents what tangible objects mobile people bring between two
residences; it is preparing artifacts for moving. The research study focus on the content of bags users take with them, and they see two way of outboxing, one is a permanent outbox which is adjusted between trips but never been totally unpacked, another is a temporary bags which only packaged when people ready to move.Connecting. Mobile phone and laptops are key artifacts for connecting, which are able to stay in
touch with distributed family. Another way to connect with family is gift giving, which reflects home as a social construction of home. The mobile phone and laptops were stood for key roles for connecting. In addition to numerous phone calls, Gift giving also represents the connection between mobile people and family members. We saw a lot of examples of gift giving as a way of connecting to loved ones. The tactic of connecting is a way to relate the ideas of home as the social construction of home.Differentiating. People act differently in two residences because of different value they consider
in each of places. It helps them differentiate the identity of home from on to another.Doubling. Doubling is copy artifacts from primary home to new residence, such as setting double
things in either residence, or copying technology in computer in order to equal the information in two places. People seek for same home feeing in different place in order to feel at home in remote place.Rythming. Rythming is continuation beyond mobility, copying live schedule from one place to
another, such as sticking to same working time even when they are in different time zone, or person who follow the rhythm of markets in terms of doing business.14
With those activities, mobile people are able to put homing into action. However, the definition of homing in this research study is based on extremely mobile people with their own way established self-belonging in mobile life, rather than mainly considering the relation with distributed family members. In our research, the action of homing for mobile people is not only based on material perspective or personal behavior, but rather founded on the belongingness of family.
2.2.2. The Meaning of Home for Mobile People
More and more research studies in environmental psychology and sociology demonstrate how mobile people create emotional and cognitive feeling of home in dual residence. van der Klis and Karsten (2009) proposed the feeling of home for commuters in material, activity, and social dimensions, and compare these dimensions to the sense of space, place and home. Scholars investigated thirty commuter couples in Netherlands with in-depth interview. Material dimension is physical setting, items which are emotionally interpreted.
It is the most common dimension which considered as evidence to create the feeling of home in various research studies, such as furniture, cherish objects and meaningful material in order to represent an experience of familiar places (D. S. Kirk & Sellen, 2010). Activity dimension is regarded as a personal place identity in particular location in daily life, and further transform it from space into a familiar place or home. Commuters arrange their time in workplace and commuter residence differently, which demonstrate the activities they arranged in daily life. It is
Table 2-1 Number of respondents with the experience of space, place, or home for each dimension. (Cuba & Hummon, 1993b)
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interesting that gender is one of influencer that cause different activity behavior which refer to previous research studies that women interpret home emotionally but men interpret home practically (Rutherford, 1990; van der Klis & Karsten, 2009).
The research shows that women are more willing to create a sense of home in commuter residence with abounding activities after working time, and decorate residence as a comfortable place. In contrast, men are more willing to work overtime in order to escape the rest of time spending at night. They also less interest to shop or decorate commuter residence. Social dimension looks into social contact of mobile people in commuter residence. Family visiting enhance the experience of home feeling, and it is the most difficult action for mobile people visiting their family regularly. However, some of people regarded their commuter residence as a personal place apart from primary home. They create a secret place in commuter residence in order to temporary away from family. Comparing these three dimensions with the experience of space, place and home, they found that material dimension is the main element reflects the experience of home. For the activity mobile people involved, it reflects to the experience of place where leads them to familiar certain place. Social dimension is the most difficult element to experience commuter residence as home but rather than a space. It is because family members are in distant location where is hard to physically connect to their family members. Without the experience family gathering together, it is hard to regard commuter residence as a home.
2.2.3. Brief Summary
In conclude, research studies have looked into various perspectives that make mobile people feel at home. For extremely mobile people, the perspective of behavior is being investigated to understand people construct self-belonging in new residence.
For commuter partners in dual residence, material, activity and social aspects are regarded as principle to survey the feeling of home. As a result, the evidence of how people construct the feeling of home is not only focusing on copying the material from original family, but creating a sense of belonging in new residence. The type of belonging can divide as self-belonging, family belonging, and community belonging.
For self-belonging in mobile life, people construct a continuously habit or activity themselves without the limitation of location. The evidences are clearly reveal on the behavior of Bubbling
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and Doubling in the research of Petersen et al. (2010). Community belonging is focus on how well people adapt to the new environment though social life circle. Family belonging means to feel a sense of welcome and acceptance to family. As suggested by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a psychological theory centered on humans’ innate desire for fulfillment, belonging is a need that we naturally seek in order to feel loved (Maslow, 1943). To keep the Rythming from home and