Unfamiliar terms can be useful to highlight patterns that are hard to recognize with our existing vocabulary and concepts. This is the reason for using the somewhat archaic word “habitation”. The dictionary definition is “the state or process of living in a particular place.” The most familiar usage is to say that there are no signs of human habitation in a particular place.

I use the term to encompass all of the activities that are involved in creating, maintaining, and improving the human settlements in which we live. During the Covid-19 lockdowns, we became acutely aware of the “essential workers” who made it possible for the rest of us to survive when we were confined to our own homes. Those essential workers included hospital employees, grocery and supermarket staffs, delivery people, and those keeping the phones, the internet, the electricity, and other utilities from crashing. We can think of these essential workers as the core of the habitation workforce.

But many of the others who were laid off or working from home during the lockdowns were also part of the habitation labor force. This includes construction workers building homes, offices, commercial spaces, or infrastructure projects. It also encompasses the people employed in education, childcare, and healthcare including also yoga studios, gyms, and mental health services. Moreover, those working in city government, policing, transportation, arts and entertainment, retail trade and restaurants are sustaining habitation. Finally, the growing number of people in the innovation economy who are developing new products and new processes are working to improve habitation in the future.

Most of us also do habitation work when we are not engaged in paid employment. Childrearing, cleaning house, home repairs, yard work, helping neighbors, and participation in civic groups are also part of creating, maintaining, and improving our communities. Similarly, various forms of activism to reduce environmental harms or increase the accountability of police can also be counted as doing habitation work.