Finding Home: The Experience of Home on Journeys Away from Intimate Partner Violence

Violence in the intimate sphere can send women and children out of their homes and onto journeys over vast geographical distances and into various forms of temporary accommodation. When women and children are displaced like this, they have to settle and re-settle on their complex journeys away from intimate partner violence. This article shows that not all these places will be or become home and that the absence of home can entail different forms of distress, such as fear, alienation and despondency. The concept of home is (re)emerging in social work. By employing a threefold understanding of home as a physical place, a feeling and a practice, this article offers new insights into the role of home in the recovery process of women and children subjected to violence. Home is an essential place for adults and children. Therefore, this article argues that home is an important concept for social workers working with families subjected to violence, as finding home can be a central part of the recovery process. This article is based on data from two studies on families experiencing intimate partner violence, drawing on fieldwork at a women's shelter and on semi-structured interviews with women and children.