NÅR HJEMME ER UDE: Betydningen og skabelsen af hjem i naturen blandt homesteadere i Oregon, USA

Abstract

Based on fi eldwork among homesteaders in the US Pacifi c Northwest, this article

explores particular ways in which home is created and sustained in the light

of the homesteaders’ ideals of becoming one with nature. The article focuses on

how construction of houses is guided by such ideals and shows how the merging

of home and nature is also taking place at a mundane level in social interaction.

When building a house the homesteaders are seeking to discard standard urban

ideas about which materials to use and how to furnish houses. In a long debate

about how to deal with the fact that rats have entered the common kitchen, naturalisation

and humanisation of both people and animals are employed in order

to create a common ground. In sum the article argues that the homesteaders’

practises are serving both their effort to stand out from “mainstream” or “suburban”

America as part of an ideological project to establish alternative ways of

living, and that they also express a more existential struggle to create spaces of

harmony and personal control in a modern world characterised by consumerism

and globalisation.

Keywords: Nature, U.S.A., alternative life styles, home.