THE MATTER OF INSIDE AND OUTSIDE: REDEFINING THE SENSE OF HOME IN A PANDEMIC WORLD

ABSTRACT

Undeniably, the home is a place of comfort, a place to relax and to feel safe. A home is what many people strive to build during their lifetimes, both externally--the outside, the furniture, the garden--and internally (the feeling of a home, a place to recover from the world outside, raising kids, having friends and family over, throwing social events). As the Covid-19 virus started spreading, prompting individuals, mainly older adults, to stay inside and moving almost all outside activities inside, many struggled with involuntary social isolation within their own homes. This meant that many aspects of what makes a home a home were not possible for an (at the time) unforeseeable future. The home became a more fragile place, forcibly filled with new elements, one of them being activities mediated by technology.