The Domestic and the Political. On the Political Meanings of the Home

Abstract

This monographic section questions the concept of domesticity, and some of its concrete developments, both as a principle of order and as a device through which historically and culturally variable differences and meanings are articulated – starting with those associated with it from the very beginning, namely the values of stability, solidity and centredness. The essays collected here challenge the idea of a separation between domestic and political space, which is made to coincide tout court with that between private and public space. For a long time, this dichotomy relegated domesticity to a politically irrelevant dimension. Instead, it is the home as a political form that is here investigated and questioned.