Material #15: Home, and what's lost when homes are destroyed
Human and Land Rights Network’s short introduction to the right to housing says:
“It has been well established in international human rights law and its interpretation that housing is not just a physical structure of four roofs and a wall. It is a much broader concept, which encompasses various material and non-material elements of adequacy, which are necessary to create a safe and secure place to live…[Housing is] integral to the realization of the right to live with dignity”.
This means that when homes are destroyed and their residents displaced, what is lost is so much more than a secure place to live. Kenny Aderogba, a community relations officer with Spaces for Change in Lagos, Nigeria, recently shared her response to witnessing housing demolitions in two communities.
“Mothers were seen holding their children close, attempting to shield them from the harrowing scene that enveloped us. Fathers rummaged through the remains, searching for any pieces of their former existence among the ruins, their countenances reflecting the dread and uncertainty of what lies ahead. This spectacle of mass displacement left me feeling profoundly helpless, powerless, and burdened with frustration and guilt.”
She turns her frustration into a commitment to action.
“In light of these events, my resolve is to not only continue the fight against forced eviction and mass displacement but to innovate our methods…”
In Gaza, the decimation of the territory has led not only to the loss of lives of women, men and children but also of neighborhoods, schools, markets, and homes that contain a multitude of memories.
Balakrishnan Rajagopal, UN Rapporteur on the Right to Housing, is among many who are framing the intentional destruction of homes in Gaza, as well as previous contexts such as Aleppo and Mariupol, as a crime of domicide. Beirut Urban Labs expands the term to “urbicide” in its project “Tracking the Urbicide in Gaza” which is mapping the destruction of buildings, infrastructure and green spaces:
“Urbicide, as argued by Martin Coward, encompasses not only the physical destruction of buildings and infrastructure but also the resulting disruption of social and cultural networks, the displacement of populations, and the erasure of collective memory.”
The material dimensions of home are linked directly to non-material dimensions – the way light falls on a wall at a certain time of day, the sounds on the street outside, the experience of being in a place together with other people who inhabit it. The violence of destruction of homes is multi-layered, with lasting effects across generations.
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Through 2024, It’s Material is sharing one use of the word “material” each week, on Tuesdays.
Listen to a podcast conversation I had with Kenny Aderogba on her work with urban communities and youth in Lagos
Visit data on Israeli demolition orders of Palestinian homes preceding the current conflict, from 1988 - 2020; and watch this short video of rebuilding homes in Gaza after previous demolitions
And read NoViolet Bulawayo’s stunningly-written novel “We Need New Names”, which contains the ripple-effects of a demolition as told through the eyes of 10-year-old (and later in the novel, teenage) Darling, as she grows up in Zimbabwe and then in the United States