Paper short abstract:

I aim to highlight the tension inherent in the dialectic of the ‘at home in the world’ and the ‘not at home in the world’ by suggesting that the ‘not-at-home’ should not be conceived as opposed to ‘being-at-home’; indeed, the ‘not-at-home’ is a condition of being-at-home.

Paper long abstract:

Based on fieldwork conducted in Basra, Iraq, I aim to highlight the tensions inherent in the dialectic of 'being at home in the world' and 'not being at home in the world'. Heidegger claims in 'Being and Time' that the 'not-at-home' is human-being's fundamental experience as a being-in-the-world. The question, however, arises: how can being-in-the-world have as its basic experience the 'not-at-home'? One of the moves I want to make is to suggest that the 'not-at-home' should not be conceived as opposed to 'being-at-home'; indeed, the 'not-at-home' is a condition of being-at-home. The ethnographic narrative I use to ambiguate the theoretical picture is concentrated on the figure of Abu-Ahmed who works as a day-labourer in Basra. His attempts to build a secure home and life for his wife and children is constantly thwarted by militia violence, gang robberies and poor economic conditions generally within Iraq. His vascillation between immersment in the social world through work and detachment when he has no work and can do very little, picks out the less cosy relation between human-being and world.