Inheritance, Death and the Concept of the Home

This paper draws upon the concept of the home at the personal creation of its occupant, as developed in recent literature, to examine what happens to a home after the death of that occupant. Our central question is: given contemporary meanings attached to home, what happens to a home when the person who created it dies? Does the home die with its creator? Can it survive to become someone else's home? If not, what are the processes through which the death of the home is effected? We examine these questions using empirical data from a recent study of inheritance.