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Abstract
This research examined the patterns of living and work arrangements of home-based workers in neighborhoods of different socio-economic composition in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Forty participants were interviewed from three study areas—an economically depressed area with a predominantly African-American population, a mixed-income neighborhood with an ethnically heterogeneous population, and a middle-income neighborhood with a predominantly White population. The study used a mixed methodological approach where qualitative data were augmented by quantitative data. Structuration Theory, Technologies of Self boundary management concepts, and the model of Activity Systems and Systems of Settings guided data interpretation. Findings revealed that home-based workers, as active agents, interacted with the existing structures of their live-work environments to accommodate work within their residences through boundary management practices that had spatial, temporal, or behavioral manifestations. The presence of clients in the residence, household composition, household members ‘practices, the nature of and motive for home-based work, and spatial affordances of work settings all influenced how and when these boundaries between work and home were placed or removed.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Atiya N. Mahmood
Atiya N. Mahmood is Assistant Professor, Department of Design and Human Environment, Oregon State University, Cowallis, OR. This study was partially funded by a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Dissertation Grant.