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.