Home Alone: Negotiating Domestic Life by Young Urban Solo Dwellers in Berlin and Seoul During the COVID-19 Pandemic¹

Abstract

Not only isolation but also the expansion of digital social connectivity have led to radical changes in young urban solo dwellers’ everyday life at home in the pandemic. Comparing Berlin and Seoul, we found that contrasting pandemic policies and socio-cultural contexts of living alone implied different challenges related to “staying-at-home”. This interview-based study focuses on a period early into the pandemic 2020, and explores experiences of young urban solo dwellers in two cities, with the aim to identify changes in the meaning of home and implications for wider social patterns. Using the spatial figures of territory and network as conceptual basis, we identify contradicting logics in the pandemic policies and modes of domestic life, which posed distinctive challenges for young solo dwellers in each city. The findings suggest that renegotiating domestic life by solo dwellers in Berlin has led to compressed digital transition, and to compressed individualization in Seoul.

KEYWORDS: :

• home
• Covid-19
• urban solo dweller
• individualization
• small home
• refiguration

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

INFORMED CONSENT

All interview partners participated voluntarily. They provided informed consent to participate in this study. The interviews were non-interventional and ethical approval is not required.

Notes

1 The study was funded by the Berlin University Alliance Special Call for the Pandemic Research, and partly by the German Research Foundation (DFG) via the CRC 1265 Re-figuration of Spaces.

2 According to the report published by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (Choi 2022), the primary reason for leaving the parental home among all adults is marriage, accounting for 36.4% of the cases, followed by education (28%), work (20.9%), and the desire for independence (7.3%). Conversely, in Germany, where residential independence from parents is typically associated with the transition to adulthood, individuals often choose to live independently from their parents regardless of educational pursuits, even if they attend university in their hometown (Luetzelberger, 2014).

3 The Seoul Metropolitan Government has drawn up a support agenda in 2021: “Seoul, the safe city for one-person households”. Unlike Germany, where institutional support mainly targets elderly people who live alone, Seoul provides various services including hospital accompaniment and social dining for the young demographic.

Additional information

Funding

Berlin University Alliance; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

Notes on contributors

Seonju Kim

M.Sc. Seonju Kim is architect and urban researcher at TU Berlin and researcher in the project “Everyday Life in Digitalized Spaces” within the Collaborative Research Center 1265 “Re-Figuration of Spaces” in Berlin. She graduated with master’s degree from ETH Zurich and with B.Arch. from Korean National University of Arts in Seoul. [email protected]

Jörg Stollmann

Jörg Stollmann is professor of architecture and urban planning at TU Berlin. Jörg Stollmann graduated from UdK Berlin and Princeton University. The co-director of the project “Everyday Life in Digitalized Spaces” within the Collaborative Research Center 1265 “Re-Figuration of Spaces”. Among his recent publications are “Tiergarten. Landscape of Transgression” (Park Books).