Domosity: Towards a Fourth Anti-Discrimination Principle

This article takes as its starting point the introduction of the concept of ‘ domosity ’, intended to articulate and capture the condition of being at home, not in a physical, but in a social and existential sense. It argues that, while this condition tends to be virtually an unobserved default for members of dominant majorities, for members of minorities and other non-dominant groups it more often appears as a challenging lack that manifests as an existential burden. The aim of the paper is not only to name and clarify this social-existential condition – which has been touched upon in different ways across literature, philosophy and the social sciences – but also to use this concept to reveal a hitherto largely overlooked dimension of the principle of equal treatment, one that complements but remains distinct from established understandings of equality as equal freedom. Building on this observation, the article explores the legal implications of incorporating the domosity dimension into the theory of non-discrimination and proposes a doctrinal reform by articulating domosity as a fourth principle of anti-discrimination, extending legal analysis beyond merely equal access to rights.