Like any term out there that has a sizable group of people interested in it, there is much disagreement about what, exactly, homesteading means. People feel there are certain tools, skills, and parameters that have to happen in order to call an activity “homesteading”. There’s a lot of gatekeeping going on here. No surprise, really.

And there are folks who do a lot of the activities associated with homesteading that really don’t call themselves homesteaders. People who have big gardens and maybe a couple chickens, bake their own bread, or repair their own small engine machinery, may or may not put themselves into the category of homesteading. It turns out it’s very individual.

The Broad Definition of Homestead

The term “homestead” actually has a legal definition, at least in the USA. It has more to do with defining what someone’s home is. Not that you have a garden, or animals, or a tractor, etc. It usually goes as follows…

A house and adjoining land designated by the owner as his fixed residence and exempt under the homestead laws from seizure and forced sale for debts.

Collins Dictionary of Law, W.J. Stewart, 2006

So if some entity, like the local county government, wants to seek compensation for back taxes the legal system first has to define what a person’s home is, and whether it’s lawful to take it in compensation for debts. (Short answer: it’s not, at least while they’re alive.) Also to include the measure of land that comprises a homestead at 160 acres, and any adjoining outbuildings.

Encyclopedias and dictionaries go a little further in defining homestead as including agricultural activities, food production, and a craft done by the resident(s) to use for themself or sell to fund the homestead.

A vernacular term for a lifestyle of self-sufficiency, characterized by subsistence agriculture, and home food preservation …

Homesteading, Wikipedia, retrieved 1/10/2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homesteading

How Homesteaders Define Themselves

A back-to-the-land or agrarian movement within a society is nothing new. As a culture becomes larger, more complex, and more distant from farming endeavors there always seems to be those people who say “Wait! We have to remember and honor our connection to the land!” This often involves people moving from cities and into rural areas, whether they came from there initially or not. So an aesthetic of farming or country life is often included in the idea of what it means to be a homesteader.

With the increase in rural land values this sentiment has changed over the last couple decades or so. Many homesteaders who live in suburban areas, not too farm from city centers, will include themselves in the “homesteading movement”. Even folks who are landlocked within apartments will still find ways to grow plants in pots and prepare and preserve as much of their own food as possible, calling themselves homesteaders.

The commonality I’ve seen in online discussions about what makes a homestead and a homesteader has more to do with mindset, than trappings. A willingness to try and produce your own food, to try and cook and bake from scratch as much as possible, to fix and maintain things instead of hiring someone, and a frugality of making do with what you have before buying it (and preferably from thrift store or rummage sales).

So what makes a homesteader then also makes the homestead… it’s wherever your home is. Your heart, your family, your sense of place and purpose. Then the modern definition of homestead can include anything from that highrise apartment to a remote shack far away from civilization.

What makes a homestead is the person, not the place.

What are your ideas about what defines a homestead… and a homesteader? Is it gardens, animals, tractors or UTVs, canning jars, homeschooling, etc. etc. What makes you happy on your homestead?

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Headline image: New house on the old William Marsh homestead near the Genet Post Office, Custer County, Nebraska. Library of Congress, Public Domain Archive. https://loc.getarchive.net/media/new-house-on-the-old-william-marsh-homestead-near-the-genet-post-office-custer