About Human Habitats

Habitat is essentially a biological definition, “the natural environment characteristically occupied by a particular organism; an area distinguished by the set of organisms, which occupy it” and “one's dwelling place or usual surroundings” (1). In short, it is a synthesis of a place and its inhabitants. It follows that interaction between the inhabitants and their surroundings is a two-way process. Natural and/or architectural environments influence behaviors and create specific rituals, leading to the emergence of particular subcultures. Habitat is a major contributor to people's self-identities through geographical, linguistic, professional, or indeed national factors. Importantly, habitats also include history and tradition.

Artists have shown different human habitats through portraits, architectural drawings, and landscapes. They created sophisticated depictions of habitats, not necessarily limited by geography. Take for instance, the 17th century genre paintings by the Le Nain brothers, Antoine (ca. 1599–1648), Louis (ca. 1593–1648), and Mathieu (1607–1677), that pictured the rural life of the period (2). A royal court would be another non–geographically limited habitat presented in countless paintings throughout art history.

When one considers habitats distinguished by the type of location, the seashore is one that possesses many geographical and cultural variations. Its prominent observer was the 19th century French painter Eugène Louis Boudin (1824–1898) (3, 4), a pioneer of outdoor landscape painting. As a boy, he worked on a commercial boat running between Hornfleur, where he was born, and the port of Le Havre in northern France. Later, as Joseph Conrad did in literature, Boudin used his early sea experiences in his art. He portrayed the sea, ports, ships and, perhaps most famously, the bourgeois life in seashore towns. His technique demonstrates a magnificent sensitivity to color and mastery of minute detail (Fig. 1). Boudin travelled to Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and the South of France, but his strongest association was with Normandy. He later influenced Claude Monet.

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Fig. 1. Eugène Louis Boudin.

A French Harbor (previously known as Le Bassin du Port de Gravelines. 1888. Oil on wood, 37.6 × 46 cm. ©The Hunterian, University of Glasgow 2016. Reproduced with permission.

Another such generic habitat is the city. Cities develop their own subcultures, either cosmopolitan or intensely local. The Impressionists were probably the most important group of artists who interrogated city culture at the early stages of mass urbanization. Later, one of the best artist-observers of urban life and urban solitude was an American painter, Edward Hopper (1882–1967) (5). At the end of the 20th century an architect, Rem Koolhas, presented an iconic description of the artificiality of city habitat in his book Delirious New York (6).

The academic world associated with a university campus can also be seen as a non-geographical habitat. Different aspects of a world revolving around research, students, and seasonal rituals and framed by college towns has been presented in books, films, TV serials, and autobiographies of academics. The campus subculture might be quite self-contained even when located in a city (7, 8, 9).

In each habitat one sees the locals who permanently inhabit it, the nomads who transgress the boundaries, and the visitors who arrive there, observe, but never become part of it. Further, people may spend most of their existence in one habitat and only glimpse the others. One could argue that academia, by its large demands on people's time, tends to confine people to specific surroundings. It is not an accident that the precursor of the university was the monastery. On the other hand, paradoxically, the university campus nowadays is often the most cosmopolitan enclave in a city.

What gives the concept of human habitat considerable importance is that it provides non-political perspective on the issue of Locals and the Others, enabling reflection on how much attention do we want to pay to, and how much are we prepared to venture into, different “worlds,” outside of our comfort zone, and meet Others. And, most pertinently to the contemporary world, what is our attitude to visitors?

• Received for publication September 16, 2016.
• Accepted for publication September 20, 2016.

• © 2016 American Association for Clinical Chemistry