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Abstract

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows how the possibilities for inhabiting both the present and future are so often tied up with the materiality of home, including everyday possessions such as mirrors and slow cookers. It examines the interstitial home-making practices of gay men in Beirut, situated in the small spaces beyond the family home and state control, and in the quick and intermittent rhythms of hookups, which nonetheless contribute to a more enduring, if fragile, sense of home. The book examines the process of doing fieldwork as one of developing intimacy together – or of home-making. It provides a similarly sensitive exploration of such tensions between belonging and exploitation, as they are mediated by the traditionally gendered ideals of home that survivalists in Arizona carry with them into their lives off-grid.