Home as a Thick Place: Beyond Geographic Coordinates
For the Ohio Institute, 'home' is a central philosophical category, distinct from mere residence or property. Drawing on phenomenology and narrative theory, they define home as a 'thick place'—a location saturated with memory, relationship, ritual, and meaning. It is where one's story is interwoven with the stories of others, past and present. The childhood bedroom, the familiar path to school, the local diner where you're known by name, the cemetery where ancestors are buried—these layers of experience create a deep, often pre-reflective attachment. This concept challenges the thin, transactional view of place promoted by a hyper-mobile global economy, where location is chosen for career opportunity or cost of living alone. The Institute's research explores the psychological and social costs of rootlessness, arguing that a sense of home provides a crucial foundation for identity, resilience, and ethical orientation.
The Right to Stay Put: A Moral Claim Against Displacement
Building on the work of urbanist Jane Jacobs, the Institute articulates a 'right to stay put' as a fundamental but neglected human right. This is the right of individuals and communities to remain in their homes and neighborhoods, not to be displaced by market forces, gentrification, infrastructure projects, or environmental disaster. This right is rooted in the moral value of continuity and the investment people make in building social capital and caring for a place over time. The Institute's advocacy work focuses on policies that protect this right: community land trusts, strong tenants' rights, just-cause eviction laws, and resident-controlled redevelopment. Philosophically, they argue that stability is a prerequisite for flourishing, and that constant mobility, while sometimes necessary, can be a form of trauma that severs the vital connections between people and place.
Leaving and Returning: The Dialectic of Departure and Homecoming
The Midwest has long been a region of both deep roots and out-migration, especially of young people seeking opportunity elsewhere. The Institute studies the complex psychology and morality of leaving home. Is departure a betrayal of obligation, or a necessary journey of self-discovery? They also examine the phenomenon of return—the 'boomerang' migration of adults coming back to raise families or care for aging parents. This dialectic of departure and homecoming is seen as a modern epic, full of tension and meaning. The Institute hosts writing workshops and storytelling events for 'returnees' and 'stayers' to share their narratives, exploring how leaving can deepen appreciation for home, and how returning can transform both the individual and the community. This work seeks to reframe the 'brain drain' narrative, recognizing that a dynamic relationship with the wider world can enrich a place, provided there are pathways for connection and contribution back home.
Making a Home: The Practices of Inhabitation
Home is not merely found; it is made through daily practices. The Institute's ethnographic work catalogs the 'practices of inhabitation' that turn a house into a home and a town into a community: tending a garden, volunteering at the library, coaching a Little League team, shopping at the family-owned grocer, attending a place of worship, knowing your neighbors' names. These are the small, repeated actions that weave the fabric of belonging. The philosophical insight is that home is a verb as much as a noun—it is something you *do*. In an age of digital distraction and long work hours, these practices can atrophy. The Institute's community programs intentionally create opportunities for inhabitation, from neighborhood tool-lending libraries to block party kits, arguing that civic health depends on citizens actively *making home* together, not just passively consuming a location's amenities.
Home in a Planetary Perspective: Rooted Cosmopolitanism
Finally, the Institute addresses the potential charge that a philosophy of home is parochial or exclusionary. Their response is the concept of 'rooted cosmopolitanism.' One can—and must—have a deep, committed love for a particular place (rootedness) while also recognizing our interconnectedness with and obligations to the entire planet (cosmopolitanism). In fact, they argue, it is only from the foundation of a specific home that we can responsibly engage with the global. Knowing and caring for one watershed teaches the value of water everywhere. The defense of one's local democracy builds skills for supporting democracy abroad. The Institute's model is the farmer who is fiercely attached to her family's land but also understands her connection to global commodity markets, climate patterns, and migrant labor streams. This dual consciousness—deeply local and broadly global—is presented as the mature form of home in the 21st century: not a fortress to hide in, but a nurturing ground from which to engage the world with wisdom, humility, and strength.