Climate change is forcing us to rethink our sense of ‘home’ and what it means to lose it

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The Los Angeles wildfires are causing devastating losses to people’s homes.
Thousands of homes, ranging from A-list celebrities like Paris Hilton to an Australian family living in Los Angeles, have been destroyed, leaving their owners shocked and saddened. And climate science points to numbers that suggest more such events are in store.
These events take away precious memories that have been created over many years and sometimes over a lifetime. They ask us: What does it mean to lose the place I cherish most?
The philosophy explains how our personal loss relates to a broader and more profound loss of home, rooted in our dependence on the ecosystem in which we live.
The concept of “home”
Philosopher Simone de Beauvoir wrote in her 1949 book The Second Sex that in many cultures, the home has symbolized tradition, security, and family values. Inside its walls, the past is preserved: furniture, knick-knacks, photographs, etc., connecting these objects with memories of loved ones.
Home also represents separation from outside people and events. It is “a refuge, a refuge, a cave, a womb, protecting us from external dangers,” Beauvoir writes.
However, she explains how this understanding of home is culturally specific to civilizations built on landed property, including intersecting structures of patriarchy and capitalism.
After all, in patriarchy women are seen as the caretakers of the home, meeting the physical and emotional needs of its inhabitants. On the other hand, the functioning of the home also depends on the income of those who work outside.
At the same time, Beauvoir writes, many of us have a more instrumental understanding of home. It is where we rest, sleep, eat, and store the things we own and use.
Barriers to having a sense of “home”
Traditional understandings of home as a protective structure become complicated when we realize that certain people do not have the privilege of calling certain places ‘home’.
For many people, home exists as a place of inequality, instability, and insecurity.
Homelessness continues to rise in Australia as the housing crisis continues. Home is also the most dangerous place for women.
Australian philosopher Val Plumwood puts these issues into perspective, arguing that the expressions ‘one’s place’ and ‘home’ often convey a privileged and exclusive sense of place. . She writes:
“The most vulnerable and powerless people are at greatest risk of losing control of their ability to remain in their homes and places of attachment.”
Furthermore, she argues that under capitalism, the idea that an individual belongs to a particular place or home is considered more important than many other important attachments to place, such as ties to the land. I argue that there are many cases.
She uses the term “shadow places” to describe the ecosystems that we exclude and exploit, including forests and waterways, even though they are fundamental to our existence. . These places provide the labor, nutrition, and conditions we need to survive and thrive.
Ironically, it is our indifference from these places that supports our limited understanding of “home” as a dwelling surrounded by fixed four walls.
For Plumwood, the expanded meaning of “home” would encompass the broader ecological context within which we exist.
Our sense of “home” in the climate crisis
In a 1998 article, Australian Indigenous legal scholar Eileen Watson highlights the problem of colonialism as a result of separation from the land.
Mr Watson explains that when settlers came to ‘Australia’ they were already alienated from any sense of connection to the land. This disconnect led them to plunder the land and treat Indigenous peoples as a commodity rather than a living, complex ecosystem that nurtured and nurtured them.
As philosopher Teresa Brennan has said, to commodify a living thing is to turn it into something that can be purchased and owned. Once commodified, nature can no longer reproduce itself or break down to feed other life forms.
Brennan explains how the tendency to commodify (and therefore exploit) nature represents a denial of its reproductive capacity.
And this denial is not sustainable because it encourages the exploitation of all available natural resources. Under capitalism, cessation of exploitation means cessation of profits.
Turning to philosophy and reconsidering values
Many people are unaware of the rich complexity of nature – its unique intelligence and age-old memories that extend beyond our individual lifetimes.
Brennan argues that nature has value beyond profitability for the most powerful individuals. Perhaps, therefore, our sense of “home” should go beyond the boundaries of our emotionally charged dwellings to include the wider land and ecosystem to which we belong.
In doing so, we can accelerate the transition to social, political and economic systems that recognize that what is good for the planet is also good for each of us.
Presented by The Conversation
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