Convenors
Paolo Boccagni, Università di Trento
paolo.boccagni@unitn.it
Eduardo Barberis, Università di Urbino – Carlo Bo
eduardo.barberis@uniurb.it
This session invites reflections and empirical contributions on «domestic ethnography», understood as in-depth fieldwork conducted within ordinary living spaces, encompassing a variety of «homes». Specifically, the session examines domestic ethnography as a method particularly suited for investigating non-mainstream forms of dwelling, including temporary shelters, informal housing and shared living arrangements across different social groups, with special attention to marginalized populations and vulnerabilities. We welcome papers based on single case studies and comparative analyses, particularly those focusing on (a) methodologically, the negotiation of host-guest relationships between dwellers and ethnographers, and (b) substantively, the experiences of strangers or non-kin living under the same roof. Contributions employing participatory and creative methods are strongly encouraged, as are analyses that embed ethnographies of «subaltern domesticity» within broader life trajectories and political economies of housing for both native and immigrant «shared householders».
Open questions
- What are the methodological challenges of fieldwork in shared living arrangements, and how can this contribute to a better understanding of such arrangements, including shared, temporary and/or informal ones?
- How do ethnographers manage questions of trust and consent, while documenting and representing the everyday lives of dwellers in precarious or marginalized housing?
- How does the negotiation of space and roles between non-kin cohabitants differ according to co-dwellers’ socio-demographic characteristics, and legal and socioeconomic contexts?
- How do broader political economies of housing, such as market deregulation or housing shortages, influence the lived experiences of shared housing?
- How can domestic ethnography contribute to policy debates around housing rights and social inclusion, and what does it ultimately reveal of the underlying views and practices of home and homing?
Keywords
ethnography; domestic space: homemaking; shared housing; marginalized housing.
Sub-disciplines or cross-disciplinary areas of concern
sociology and anthropology of: everyday life, house and home, cities, welfare, migration.
References
Bianchi, F., Costa, G.
2024 «Living together as a solidarity and generative practice: The case of co-housing and organized cohabitations», in International Review of Sociology, pp. 1–25.
Blunt A., Dowling, R.
2022 Home. Routledge
Boccagni, P., Bonfanti, S.
2023 Migration and Domestic Space: Ethnographies of Home in the Making, p. 255. Springer Nature, Open Access
Cho, G.-H., Woo, A., Kim, J.
2019 «Shared housing as a potential resource for community building», in Cities, 87, pp. 30–38.
Harten, J.G., Boeing, G.
2024 «Access to the exclusive city: Home sharing as an affordable housing strategy», in Urban Studies, 0, 0, https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980241258297
Heath, S., Davies, K., Edwards, G., Scicluna, R.
2017 Shared housing, shared lives: Everyday experiences across the lifecourse. Routledge.
Kenyon, E., Heath, S.
2001 «Choosing This Life: Narratives of Choice amongst House Sharers», in Housing Studies, 16, 5, pp. 619–635.
Madden P., Marcuse P.
2016 In Defense of Housing: The Politics of Crisis, London, New York, Verso Books.
Mbodj‐Pouye, A.
2016 «Fixed abodes: Urban emplacement, bureaucratic requirements, and the politics of belonging among West African migrants in Paris», in American Ethnologist, 43, 2, pp. 295-310.
Miller, D. (Ed.)
2021 Home possessions: Material culture behind closed doors. Routledge.
Miranda-Nieto A., Massa A., Bonfanti S.
2021 Ethnographies of home and mobilities: Shifting roofs. Routledge.
Convenors’ bios
Paolo Boccagni is Professor in Sociology at the University of Trento. A former ERC grantee, he has done extensive research on migration, home, diversity and social welfare. Starting from everyday life, his fieldwork tries to scale up and out local insights and findings by way of comparison, resonance, metaphor, and functional equivalence. His latest ethnography has addressed the temporalities and ways of negotiating «nothingness» and ambivalence in asylum reception facilities. Other emerging research concerns involve shared housing and dwelling, as well as the practice of homing, the production and scaling of relevance, and the ways of coping with absence and distance.
Eduardo Barberis is Professor of Sociology at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo. He specializes in migration, urban policies, and local welfare. His research focuses on diversity management, dynamics of social inclusion and exclusion, and the impact of migration in both urban and rural areas. He has contributed to numerous international and national research projects, with a strong emphasis on the comparative multilevel governance of welfare policies, broadly defined (education, social inclusion, poverty, etc.).