The Sense of Belonging to the Family

From the previous research studies review, the meaning of home is clarified as a continuum from physically identity to mentally identity. Comparing the result analyzed from last chapter, several factors that influence family identity and the sense of belonging to the family for mobile people are interpreted as follows.

5.2.1. The belongingness in Domestic Health Information

Our research results highlight the belonging of home in the geographic environment within family. It presents physical factors making people identify their family, such as a birthplace for family members. In domestic health management, the location of home deeply influenced how family manages health information. Considering about the convenience of daily routine schedule in health management, participants go to places nearby their home, such as food shopping location, doctor seeing location, which form a geographic life circle. Research has states that an experience with specific place is able to build up the sense of home (Cuba & Hummon, 1993b).

According to the geographic pattern around home, family can conduct the belongingness due to the path they walk daily time and familiar with the experience they have been through every day.

Mother’s Work in family

In addition, mother also plays an important role to create the sense of belonging in family. Some research states that the domestication of women’s role is thought to enrich the experience of being at home (Gurney, 1997). Other research studies also stated that the sentimental objects family archived reflect family identity in a way of how mothers arrange and storage these objects which display an distinctive appearance of home (Taylor & Swan, 2005). Because the domination of health information is holding by mother, the management of how mother prepares or initiate domestic health knowledge to other family members also becomes the specific identification of family.

Family Health Beliefs

As previous research review mentioned, family identity is what people think home emotionally,

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with the experience shared within family and the memories family own. Referring to domestic health management, the information inherited from senior highlight the characteristic of family identity. In the results we analyzed, health information has a strongly characteristic of inheritance due to the respect of traditional health knowledge from ancestor or the empirical experience from senior. From the food family choose, Chinese or western doctor family see, and health life ideas family follow, health information is deeply influenced by the principle built up from old experience. This type of health information founded a shared system of beliefs within family member, which centralized family perspective among health ideas. Bennett et al. (1988) stated that the belief addressed the family legacy from generation to generation, and represented the current states of family in the world. As a result, domestic health information inherited from senior is considered as a share belief which presents the identification of family.

Empirical Practice of Health

In additionally, the experience what family been through also play an important role to place family identity. The management of domestic health information is, rather than conducted by general public health ideas, conducted by learning and experiencing individual health

information at home over and over again. This type of health information also treated as a life trace among family, thus it creates specific health principles which emphasize the identification in different family.

Health Expectation

Mallett (2004) proposed one of the dimensions of the meaning of home is an ideal paradise. In the perspective of domestic health management, it is able to see the ideal expectation to make family member living healthier. The manager of domestic health information, which is mother in our research study, cultivate health and diet principle within family with a responsibility of keeping family in good condition. With this point of view, a healthy life circle expectation is conducted in family. In the finding we have analyzed, it presents numerous evidences that mother hold a balance of diet within family, as well as makes effort to take care of member’s health condition.

Furthermore, mother will compensate the distribution of diet composition if health balance has not achieved. From the result we analyzed, mother will look for other supplements in order to

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substitute the lack of food intake. Besides, the health information management in distributed family is not only about caring but also about how to control. Putnam and Newton (1990) have proposed one of the meanings of home was focus on control. From the participants we

interviewed, mothers likely to control family member’s eating and health condition due to their responsibility of healthy life circle. One of our participant states that she controlled the food content in family in a purpose of keeping family away from unhealthy food. Another participant states that because she has the rights to decide the ingredients in family, she can dominate the health and diet information in family.

5.2.2. The belongingness to Mobile People

For mobile people, they face a new environment to familiar with the food and health information surrounding them. In present, they started to create a geographic life circle in the new residence.

However, it is a lack of support for mobile people to connect health information from original family to new residence. Since they started to look for new clinic or new supermarket, personal health management has been changed to adapt new environment but less connect the

information to original family. It caused a problem that mobile people’s family cannot fully understand the situation from original family and in contrast, mobile people are hard to

understand his/ her family health situation as well. The domestic information in here is dispersive from different location family member lived, which cause a barrier of domestic health

management.

Besides, it is less evidence now indicates that domestic health information create the sense of belonging to family within their mobile life due to the lack of sharing experience with their family member. The connection of health experience in present depends on phone contact or online social network. Family only able to connect and manage health information over phone by understanding their lifestyle in new residence, and maintaining health information through the food mothers prepared for mobile people. For example, some of our participants state that they will prepare homemade ready-to-eat for their children bring back to their residence in order to control what they eat. Another example is that one of our participants, as a mobile people, said that his mother would check his sleeping time by his trace from social network.

In the perspective of geographical connection of family, the sensitivity of environment brought people back to where they belonging. From the result we understand that where mother bought

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food somehow influenced by the place where family lived. In the meanwhile, the habit of what to eat is influencing family members as well. Chambers (1996) has stated that food can make people feel at home, and it is also reflected on the mobile people we interviewed. One of our participants, as mobile people, said that she would like to choose the food she used to eat at home rather than taste new flavor. For mobile people, it is an opportunity to maintain the belongingness for homing by recording the information through where family buys the food to how family cook the dishes.

Besides, health belief is another breaking point for mobile people creates their belongingness in new residence. It is a number of evidences indicate that mobile people own their health belief passing from their own family. For the families who manage heath information professionally and empirically, health belief is directly inherited from senior. One of our participants, as mobile people, said that she think her food preference more or less influenced by where she born.

Another example is participant F, as a mobile people, said he gradually accept the idea that medicated wine is good for health because his mother intake it for years. From the literature we reviewed, family identity play an important role when young adult leaving home and become the foundation for homing to people who want to create their own family as well (Douglas, 1991;

Moore, 2000). Health belief present highly identification of family as well as construct the belongingness of where people came from.

Furthermore, it is possible to found domestic health experience through the custom mobile people carrying with from original family. Referring to eating habit among people, mobile people present their own characteristic by maintaining health principle in original family when living in a new environment. The maintenance of health custom or health idea from family is able to create the sense of belonging to mobile people

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