"We believe we are in a practical world of uses, of functions, of total domestication of the object, and in the reality we are also, by objects, in a world of meanings, of reasons, of alibis: function gives birth to the sign, but this sign is reconverted into the spectacle of a function" (Barthes 190).
Though it seems more than a little redundant to state this, to not inhabit place is an impossibility. What is it, then, that constitutes "home"? Part of the answer seems revealed in Barthes's theory of punctum verses stadium, a theory that can here serve as a primary lens for the research. He wrote this theory in regards to photography, so it has a literal application in that it can explain certain elements of peoples' pictures. According to Barthes, "Thestudium is that very wide field of unconcerned desire, of various interest, of inconsequential taste: I like/ I don't like. The studium is of the order of liking not of loving" (Barthes 27). I would like to propose that for the average person, place is roughly equivalent to "studium." Most places, like a classroom or a street or a restaurant or a bathroom are likeable enough, but not particularly special. Within these places, though, people either actively carve out a "space." These spaces would be equivalent to the Barthesian idea of punctum. Punctum is "sting, speck, cut, little hole-and also a cast of the dice... the accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me)" (Barthes 27). Punctum is a slippery concept, because the whole idea of it hinges on the fact that it does not logically make sense. Barthes uses many examples to convey his idea of punctum. In each it is something that hits him but is unnameable. There is an implicit idea that the punctum is very much subjective to the viewer, and dependent upon how it corresponds to something already within the viewer. Barthes argues that the punctum is not coded. When applied to the idea that people recognize certain places as spaces that are their own, this becomes quite romantic. However, as Rose points out, many people disagree with Barthes on this point, and feel that the punctum is always coded, just perhaps more specifically by the viewer (Rose 106). Either way, this makes a good framework with which to discuss home, and explains why one person's home cannot necessarily be another person's home. Each of the participants identified spaces within the places they inhabit, 0though each participant had a very different idea of home.
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