Domestic genealogies: how people relate to those who once lived in their homes

This article explores how people consider their relationships to the previous inhabitants of their homes. While homes are conventionally imagined in terms of an ideal of exclusive ownership and residence, privacy and familial intimacy, the sense of home as shared with strangers who once lived there often has to be negotiated in the everyday senses of home. Drawing on qualitative case studies undertaken in England with those whose interest in the past of their home ranged from active research to more everyday reflections, this article explores the varied ways in which people reflect on and experience pre-inhabitation in terms of senses of dwelling, selfhood and relatedness to those who once lived in their homes. Our engagement with the practices of making relations with distant and recent residents, imaginatively and through more direct social interactions, is framed by a combined focus on domestic dwelling and geographies of relatedness. We argue that understandings of home and home making can be enriched through a focus on the genealogical imaginaries and idioms that are mobilised and negotiated in how people define themselves and make home relationally.