More than Just a 'Home': Understanding the Living Spaces of Families

Abstract

In inviting the reader to see more than just a 'Home' when understanding the living spaces of families, this volume of Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research sought to achieve contributions aiming a broad understanding of the house as a plural, diverse, and multi-meaningful space. The call for papers welcomed diverse theoretical approaches and multi-method research project submissions that explore both the ways in which the family socially constructs a home, and how the house, its architecture, spatial arrangement, internal and external divisions, and micro technologies shape and reshape family relationships in the face of constant changes and challenges. Topics broadly explore the relationships between the family and the material and symbolic dimensions of the home. Such relationships encompass the trajectory and composition of the household, the gendered division of labor, work-family and education-family dynamics, migratory fluxes, and local and public policies, among others. Not surprisingly, the manuscripts consider specific occupational, gender, and age patterns of living in home space, as well as the use and implications of digital technologies, specifically a set of experiences brought about by the recent global COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent "turn to home."