Home Space Research Articles

Homescapes of im~mobility: Migratory transpatial repertoires during the pandemic

AbstractThe present article reflects on the concept of ‘spatial repertoire’ through a ‘trans’-perspective in order to explain the trans-formation of migrants’ homescapes during the pandemic—a time of restricted mobility. In the context of translocal im~mobility, this ethnographically informed multiple case study explores how three Greek ‘brain drain’ immigrants performed homescapes in the online-offline nexus from October to February 2020. Employing a critical discourse analytic approach, the findings showcase the pandemic biopolitics that have resulted in the de/reterritorialisation of everyday sociospatial activities, thus creating heterotopic places within the home. Specifically, the integration of work and political activity into the homescape has led to the resemiotisation of the linguistic landscape of homes and the dissolution of boundaries between ‘named’ spaces in homes. The concept of ‘transpatial repertoire’ captures the hybridisation of the pandemic-affected homescape, taking into consideration the vulnerabilities and emergent resistances to biopolitical control. In other words, it sheds light on the emergent heterotopias of im~mobility. (Pandemic, heterotopia, transpatial repertoire, linguistic landscape, homescape)*

A Lack of Restraint: Comparing Virtual Reality Interaction Techniques for Constrained Transport Seating.

Standalone Virtual Reality (VR) headsets can be used when travelling in cars, trains and planes. However, the constrained spaces around transport seating can leave users with little physical space in which to interact using their hands or controllers, and can increase the risk of invading other passengers' personal space or hitting nearby objects and surfaces. This hinders transport VR users from using most commercial VR applications, which are designed for unobstructed 1-2m 360 ° home spaces. In this paper, we investigated whether three at-a-distance interaction techniques from the literature could be adapted to support common commercial VR movement inputs and so equalise the interaction capabilities of at-home and on-transport users: Linear Gain, Gaze-Supported Remote Hand, and AlphaCursor. First, we analysed commercial VR experiences to identify the most common movement inputs so that we could create gamified tasks based on them. We then investigated how well each technique could support these inputs from a constrained 50x50cm space (representative of an economy plane seat) through a user study (N=16), where participants played all three games with each technique. We measured task performance, unsafe movements (play boundary violations, total arm movement) and subjective experience and compared results to a control 'at-home' condition (with unconstrained movement) to determine how similar performance and experience were. Results showed that Linear Gain was the best technique, with similar performance and user experience to the 'at-home' condition, albeit at the expense of a high number of boundary violations and large arm movements. In contrast, AlphaCursor kept users within bounds and minimised arm movement, but suffered from poorer performance and experience. Based on the results, we provide eight guidelines for the use of, and research into, at-a-distance techniques and constrained spaces.

Picture-Perfect Fish Stories: Homemaking through American Tall Tale Photographic Postcards

Photographic postcards featuring farmer culture on the American Great Plains hold a tangled relationship to the concept of home. As both personal and tactile keepsakes to be taken home after travel and souvenirs directed to loved ones, the postcard bridges spaces of home, travel, and migration. Furthermore, postcards are significant vehicles in storytelling and community building. In the early twentieth century, a peculiar type of photographic postcard became popular in the Midwest and Great Plains regions depicting farmers with outrageously oversized crops and livestock. This article explores photographic postcards by William H. Martin (1865–1940) that equivocally glorify white farmer culture and their presumed economic productivity. It posits that through an elaborate act of photomontage, these photographic cards demonstrate the boundaries of home and convey ‘homeland’ as an ambiguous landscape.

Dwelling on the move: Negotiating home and place with resident communities

This paper explores how places are culturally constructed through the practices, bodily performances and memories of dwelling in the context of places that stand out as destinations of temporary mobilities. To do this, I narrate my own personal experiences of finding my way and respectively make or contest personal roots, in two autoethnographic accounts of my city of origin, Venice, where I return occasionally, and in Barcelona, where I settled in the 2000 decade. In these memoirs, I excavate on the nexa between domestic home spaces and public life in the urban space, focusing especially on my experiences of homing, on the assemblage of domestic spaces as unfolding in a negotiation between my old and new self, my family (past and present), and other place users, including friends and passers-by in the spaces in questions. My own navigation and mooring in those cities is analysed as a collective, relational process that calls in affinity and distancing, serendipitous engagements and purposeful disengagements. In this way I hope to shed more light on the cultural construction of two cities that stand out as ‘touristed’ places, and contribute to debates on translocal urbanism and the need for an embodied, grounded understanding of the social and cultural evolution of cities.

Home-based postnatal midwifery care facilitated a smooth succession into motherhood: A Swedish interview study.

If a family is discharged from a hospital earlier after birth, close supervision by a skilled midwife is essential. The aim was to describe mothers' overall experience receiving postnatal care in a Swedish home-based midwifery care model. A descriptive qualitative study was conducted. Mothers meeting the inclusion criteria for a new home-based postnatal care model at a hospital in Stockholm, Sweden, were included. In total, 24 healthy mothers participated in a semi-structured telephone interview, averaging 58 minutes. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis, according to Braun and Clarke. The main theme explored, 'The home-based postnatal care model facilitated a smooth succession into motherhood', is explained by the themes: 1) Mothers felt 'not left adrift' when cared for by the home-based postnatal midwives; 2) Professional midwives with authority guided the way into motherhood; and 3) The home, a safe and secure space for new mothers. Mothers valued the well-structured home-based postnatal midwifery care. Important for mothers was to receive health checks, adequate information, and that midwives have a kind and individual approach to the families. Midwives play an important role for mothers in the early days after the birth of their baby.

Why university students are technostressed with remote classes: Study-Family conflict, satisfaction with university life, and academic performance

Due to the global effects of COVID-19, most universities quickly went online and sent their students home, switching from traditional face-to-face classes to video conferencing platforms. Massive virtual protests in several countries showed signs that university students suffered from technostress, questioning the assumption that “digital natives” are better prepared for technology-mediated learning. We analyzed whether one cause of this technostress was the obligation to share home space and family time with studies. We also analyzed whether this technostress affected satisfaction with university life and, ultimately, academic performance. We tested the hypotheses using structural equation modeling and analyzed data from 189 college students. Our main conclusion is that study-family conflict given remote learning affects academic performance in students. The effect of this conflict on performance is mediated by technostress and satisfaction with university life. The perception of invasion and overload due to remote learning causes dissatisfaction with university life in students, and this dissatisfaction decreases academic performance. Higher education institutions should become concerned about this problem and take action.

Interior Décor using Augmented Reality

Augmented reality helps us to visualize computer-generated content in our physical space. Often, when you buy furniture or any other decorative item, you regret that purchase as it did not suit your home space. The inability to place that object in your home space before buying it, probably due to the size of the furniture or some other reasons renders this problem. Augmented reality can help to solve this problem. Using AR one can view 3d models of furniture in their home or office environments and purchase them accordingly. This can help businesses to reduce the return rate, and increase order and cart conversion rates of the products thereby improving customer experience and benefiting the retailers

Accessing a “bounded space”: An ethnographic map of a residential care home for old persons during COVID-19

Taking place in a residential care setting in England during COVID-19, this ethnographic study offers a closer look at residents' experiences of residential care, with particular focus on dignity and wellbeing. Viewing experiences of well-being as embedded within interpersonal negotiations, the study turns to experience and stories to reveal complexities and contradictions in this taken-for-granted space. However, the timeline and design for this project has been greatly impacted by COVID-19. In exploring the design of this study and its ‘journey’ toward the field, the following article takes a critical view in order to view the impacts that ‘bounded’ and protected care settings may have on the agency and rights of older adult research participants. In this article, I also consider some of the complex ethical issues of conducting qualitative research during a time when older adults are being denied personal visitors, which can further 'bound' the care home space. The article offers timely insight on issues of agency and voice when working with a ‘protected population’ during a time which highlights the vulnerability of old adults.

Parents' experiences of mathematics learning at home during the COVID-19 pandemic: a typology of parental engagement in mathematics education.

The COVID pandemic disrupted the schooling of students worldwide resulting in many having had a period of at-home learning. Many parents found themselves assuming responsibility for supporting their children's at-home learning. Parents often find it difficult to support their children's mathematicslearning compared with other curriculum areas. There has been limited research exploring parental engagement in mathematics education generally, and little into parental engagement in mathematics education during the COVID pandemic. This paper examines how parents supported their child's mathematics education during the school closures and identifies the factors that impacted this engagement. The Ecologies of Parental Engagement (EPE) model was used to help describe the engagement of different parents in mathematics education during the school closures and to examine the way the home space and available capital shaped parental engagement. Eight parents were selected from a larger Australian study that explored the impact of the pandemic-induced period of at-home schooling on primary school mathematics and science. One-on-one narrative interviews were conducted online with participants. Analysis identified three categories of parental engagement: monitors, facilitators, and enhancers. Parents in each category responded to their role in at-home learning differently, and accessed and activated different capital to support their child's at-home learning in mathematics during the pandemic. Results highlight the value of emotional capital, as well as knowledge of mathematics and mathematics education, with implications for schools hoping to engage parents in mathematics learning. The study offers a typology to be explored in future research concerning parental engagement in mathematics education.

Comprehensive evaluation approach in the assessment of play value of playgrounds: case of Balçova, İzmir

ABSTRACT Urban children prefer playgrounds near home spaces due to physical and parental limitations on outdoor play. To increase the play value and use of playgrounds, it is essential to take a comprehensive design approach that considers the playground’s design and surrounding environment. Using the play value calculation tool designed by Woolley and Lowe, and making site location analyses, this study aims to evaluate the relationship between physical and environmental characteristics of playgrounds with land use decisions through an analysis of the numbers of users and play value of playgrounds in neighbourhood parks in Balçova, İzmir (Turkey).

Perceptions of food insecurity and access to programs among elderly females living in Colombo, Brazil: Qualitative investigation

Vulnerable women, especially those who are responsible for their households, often face difficulties in reaching food security in developing countries when compared to men, especially in Africa, Latin America and Caribbean countries. Data from Brazil between 2017 and 2018 reveals the lack of equity between men and women concerning food insecurity, with a higher percentage among women-headed households in contrast to male-headed households. To mitigate this situation, Brazil has developed many food security programs focused on vulnerable groups. In this paper, we report the results of research conducted with women who reside in a low-income, urban community in Colombo, southern Brazil. The study aimed at highlighting the women’s perceptions of the main factors leading to food insecurity, as well as the main barriers and facilitators in accessing food security programs in their community. Methodology involved a mixed-method triangulation approach. 30 women were interviewed through an instrument protocol with opened and closed-ended questions about their health profile, food practices, food insecurity perceptions and participation on food security programs. Results revealed that low income, associated with domestic violence, work overload, less years of study were perceived as barriers to achieve appropriate income and food security. Facilitators to this group’s participation in food security programs were associated with family support, living with relatives, culinary skills and being enrolled with health and social care. As barriers, the study found that living alone, being an older woman with disabilities or younger and low-educated WHH without family financial support, with insufficient comprehension about food security programs dynamics, not pursuing adequate home space to store recyclables were factors that prevented this group´s. It can be concluded that these programs increased the quality and variety of food practices and worked as a mitigating factor for inequalities in food and health.

THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON HOME SPATIAL DESIGN

This literature review is aimed to identify the impact on home spatial design during the covid-19 pandemic. The covid-19 pandemic and the need to put people into lockdown, quarantine, and self-isolation at home require a reflection on the quality and capacity of home spatial to adjust to a specific function for they are not designed. The adjustment is to ensure the health and well-being of people during the pandemic and predict the future home spatial design for more human-centric. The qualitative method was conducted by viewing 50 papers and articles related to the pandemic, working from home, spatial design, residential real estate, habitability, and resilience from March 2020 to Dec 2021. The review indicates that the Covid-19 pandemic do influence the spatial design from the government enforcement of lockdown, fear of meeting people, and the “stay at home” lifestyle aspect. The pandemic increases people’s need to control their living space, safe space, and the use of home space. This review will not only be useful to safeguard people’s physical and mental health but with respect to the deficiencies and preferences of users about their homes. It can be taken as a starting point for updating the Malaysia development plans. In addition, it benefits real estate developers as a lifestyle reference on the design of healthy residential buildings in the future.

Home Is where the Bees Are! Beekeeping as Homing in Christy Lefteri’s The Beekeeper of Aleppo and Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov’s Honeyland

Abstract Starting with a reading of Christy Lefteri’s refugee narrative The Beekeeper of Aleppo, this article looks into the fragmentation and instability of the notion of home for refugees, highlighting the resort of the characters to a notion of homing as a practice of planetary dimensions. By looking at the role of bees and beekeeping in The Beekeeper of Aleppo and the Macedonian documentary Honeyland home is explored as a ‘verb’ rather than a static location. Moreover, this article also reflects on human and non-human kin, to use Donna Haraway’s term, in the creation of home spaces and relations. I would like to express my gratitude for the support I have received as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry while working on this paper.

Who moved my boundary? Strategies adopted by families working from home

With the increase of remote work after the COVID-19 pandemic, it can be expected that soon a great number of households will consist of more than one teleworker. This raises the question of how to manage work and nonwork boundaries for the collective of household members who work from home. To better understand the adjustment to collective work from home, we examined the experiences of 28 dual-income households with school-age children residing in five countries. In doing so, we found specific strategies that families used to manage boundaries between two or more household members' work, learning, and home domains. We identified four strategies to define boundaries in the collective (i.e., repurposing the home space, revisiting family members' responsibilities, aligning family members' schedules, and distributing technology access and use) and five strategies to apply boundaries to accommodate the collective (i.e., designating an informal boundary governor, maintaining live boundary agreements, increasing family communication, incentivizing/punishing boundary respect/violation, and outsourcing). Our findings have theoretical and practical implications for remote work and boundary management.

Comparative Spatial Intimacies and the Affective Geography of Home: Imaginaries and Sense-Regimes in the Soviet-Era Baltics

This essay investigates Soviet-era homesites in the Baltic states as combinations of home imaginaries and people’s affective, sensorial relationship to the materiality of their home space. The aspect of relationality is foregrounded: the primary level of meaning-making as regards one’s quotidian home life, the article suggests, takes place at the level of comparative spatial intimacies—that is, in relation to one’s own bodily movement in space and the objects, locations, impressions, but also the ideas, norms, and values encountered and embedded in these movements. Home experience unfolds on the scene of comparative studies, where different homes form dialogues and chains of movement in space. Both intimacies and imaginaries emerge as multiscalar, being deeply personal and closely family related, but also generational and class related, and including also transnational and/or officially endorsed ideas and values. The scene of comparative intimacies is exemplified on the basis of three homesites: Soviet prefab apartment buildings, pre-Soviet farm homes, and Soviet-era summer homes. The common homing model in the Soviet-era Baltics included at least two, if not three homely sites: while most people lived in urban environments, summer vacations were typically spent in a pre-Soviet farm home or in a recently built summer home. Of these different homescapes, each supported their inhabitants’ identities in their own specific ways, each offered a different regime of spatial sensibilities, a different combination of sensations, relationscapes, and imaginaries. The essay accommodates methods of geopoetics and includes analysis of fictional texts, life writing, and the embodied presence of the author.

Translanguaging as a space of simultaneity: Theorizing translanguaging pedagogies in English medium schools from a spatial perspective

AbstractThis article theorizes translanguaging as a space of simultaneity to analyze how teachers use translanguaging to create a multilingual classroom space and engage students with their multilingual identities and epistemologies in the classroom. The data in this article are drawn from an ethnographic study of language policies and practices in a public school in the hills of eastern Nepal. The analysis of classroom anecdotes, observation notes, and interviews with teachers reveals that translanguaging reconfigures the classroom as a critical social space where students’ identities are recognized as multilingual and multiepistemic beings representing their home, community, and school spaces. I argue that translanguaging pedagogies should pay attention to connecting the perceived, conceived, and lived spaces of students to help them resist unequal pedagogies and reclaim their identities as multilingual and multiepistemic subjects. The findings of the study imply that a spatial perspective on translanguaging helps teachers expand the scope of translanguaging pedagogies to transform a monolingualized institutional space as a space of simultaneity that embraces multilingual language practices, transformative ideologies, and the lived experiences of students.

A Survey on Perceived Indoor Acoustic Quality by Workers from Home during COVID-19 Lockdown in Italy

From March 2020, Italians experienced lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic. People had to share common living spaces with family members for an extended period converting their home into workplaces. This resulted in changes to everyday life noises with implications in terms of perception of indoor acoustic quality. An online survey was designed and distributed to Italian residents to assess how they perceived the indoor quality of domestic spaces when working from home. A total of 330 questionnaires were collected and analyzed. The paper reports the results of the analyses carried out, focusing on the acoustic quality in home spaces and the satisfaction of the respondents, including an analysis of the housing context. Most respondents attach great importance to the acoustic aspects in judging the quality of the living environment and believe that the acoustic quality can improve the performance of their work. The comparison between pre-lockdown and lockdown periods shows that noises inside the building prevail over those coming from the outside and annoyance is mainly due to noise from shared spaces. The results of this study highlighted how the COVID-19 lockdown was a unique opportunity to draw attention to the importance of the indoor acoustic quality.

Food Environments, Food Security, and Household Food Availability of Circular Migrant Families: A Mixed-Methods Study Among Brick Kiln Laborers in Bihar, India.

Circular migration is the dominant pattern of movement in India and is a livelihood strategy used by many food insecure rural households. Repeated shifts in food environments have important implications on household food security and dietary patterns but have not been studied. To explore differences in the food environment, food security, and food availability between home and destination spaces. Mixed-methods research was conducted among circular migrant families working and residing on brick kilns in the state of Bihar. Utilizing stratified cluster sampling, 2 rounds of cross-sectional data were collected from 2564 families. Additionally, 25 in-depth interviews were conducted with circular migrant parents, kiln owners, and labor contractors. The Food Insecurity Experience Scale was validated for use in our study population. Bivariate analyses were conducted to estimate the association of food insecurity with sociodemographic variables. Qualitative data were analyzed using descriptive thematic methods. Seventy percent of respondents utilized at least one nonmarket source of food at the origin; at the destination, sources of food were limited to the private market. Despite higher food prices at the destination, perceived food affordability was higher during periods of migration, resulting in improved food security. Tubers, rice, and wheat were typically available in the household daily, whereas fruits, eggs, and dairy were typically unavailable during the week. Circular migration can enable short-term food security by improving food affordability. Policy frameworks must address the root causes of chronic food insecurity, especially among rural-to-rural circular migrant families.

Strategies to adapt and update the existing residential building stock of Lezha region in the post Covid-19 pandemic era

Towards sustainable solutions for post pandemic city is analyzed the city of Lezha - as case Since its beginning, the Covid-19 pandemic changed most of the aspects of human life and, specifically, has resulted in a disruptive transformation of the social interactions. As it is well known, the largest part of the built spaces has been shaped to ensure these interactions and, as consequence, sanitary prevention measures (minimum interpersonal distance of one meter and half to keep in public spaces or the attendance of school from home, working from home) have been having a disruptive impact on the spaces inhabited by humans until now. Narrowing down the field to the built environment, at the scale of the residential buildings, this article investigates how, in the of region of Lezha (Albania), both in the pandemic and post-pandemic scenario, the reconfiguration of the home spaces can play a significant role in protecting residents from the disease. In this context, the two main key aspects of the houses analyzed in the article are essential to face those transformations of built environment due to the pandemic: the spatial transformation in terms of size, adaptability, and flexibility of the layout of the dwellings and the improvement of environmental quality and comfort of the dwellings. Starting from data available from the Census 2011 for the region of Lezha, the spatial, constructive and environmental features of the most representative existing building types have been analyzed, identifying the ones that have to be improved. From the data collected by this analysis, general design support guidelines to adapt and update the existing residential Lezha region building stock to the new living needs imposed by Covid-19 pandemic have been developed, addressed mainly to local authorities and building users.

Analysis of interior design and furniture elements that can be exploited in balconies and rooftops

Balconies and rooftops are really that part of a home where we can just head to get some fresh air, get in touch with nature, enjoy views and Sunsets, but they don’t have to be limited to that. interior design can make a cool personal touch with many really functional and stylish design ideas that can be inspired to turn balconies and rooftops into the favorite hang-out spot in our homes with some furniture, accessories and interior design ideas. The initial focus was creating functioning and aesthetic areas from home spaces where we can relax or entertain. we can add aesthetic value by adding extra plants and lighting to warm up the ambience with wooden seats can makes it more inviting and favorite hangout place in no time. We realized how important our balconies and rooftops could be, especially after Corona virus crisis and people having to stay at home and also environmental issues in high-density cities and the climate change; open balconies and rooftop might affect the health of occupants and ecosystem in the future, with a good creative thinking. We can create special view with lots of greenery, some wall decorations, and add a touch of color through the outdoor rug and pillows by Taking full advantage of ideas. We can transform balcony and rooftop into an irresistible summer retreat. This could substantially upgrade lifestyle, as a step in enhancing awareness of open spaces in our homes and relation to sustainability.