The Battle of the Balconies—Scandinavian Sameness and Urban-Domestic Boundaries

Abstract

Urban-domestic boundaries mediate social relations and encounters between the private and public spheres. Recent literature stresses that such boundaries are fluid rather than fixed and that, despite the physical layers that divide domestic space from urban space, domestication can occur everywhere in urban space. In this article, I build on such dynamic approaches to domestication, but by focusing on balconies, I propose redirecting the focus to the role of materiality and the built environment in domestication processes. Based on architectural-anthropological fieldwork in three Danish housing blocks, I analyze who can domesticate and leave traces where on the urban-domestic boundary and how the materiality of the built environment takes part in such domestication processes. I argue that balconies domesticate both outwards and inwards, and that battles of social identity and key Scandinavian notions of sameness are at stake in such processes.

KEYWORDS: :

• domestication
• domestic boundaries
• balconies
• disadvantaged housing area
• sameness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 As Garvey also notes, there are of course differences between the Scandinavian countries. Yet building on Leira (1992) she argues that Scandinavian social-democratic political culture with traditional public sphere intervention in the home results in different perceptions of civic privacy than in ‘liberal’ welfare states such as Britain (Garvey, 2005)

2 According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, ‘domestication’ means: a: the adaptation of a plant or animal from a wild or natural state (as by selective breeding) to life in close association with humans, b: the process of adapting someone or the state of being adapted to domestic life, c: the adaptation of something to meet the expectations or tastes of ordinary people

3 Since 2010, Denmark has had a list of deprived social housing areas characterized by ethnic background; low employment, education, and income; and high rates of crime conviction. The list is colloquially known as ‘the ghetto list’ and is referred to as such by politicians, the media, and the public alike. However, the current Minister of the Interior and Housing has recently proclaimed that he prefers the term ‘parallel societies’ instead of ‘ghettos’

4 The Danish lyrics are: “Hvor skoven dog er frisk og stor… kuk-kuk, kuk-kuk, fallera”.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Building Foundation, The Landowners’ Investment Foundation, Altan.dk.

Notes on contributors

Marie Stender

Marie Stender is an anthropologist and senior researcher in the Department of the Built Environment at Aalborg University, Denmark. She is the head of the research group Transformation of Housing and Places, the Vice Chairman of the Board at the Danish Town Planning Institute and the founder and project manager of the Nordic Research Network for Architectural Anthropology. Her research and publications focus on architectural anthropology, disadvantaged neighborhoods, urban-domestic boundaries, urban life, place-making, social sustainability, and the relationship between social life and built environments. Stender has edited the new Routledge anthology ‘Architectural Anthropology—Exploring Lived Space’ (Stender, Beck-Danielsen AND Hagen 2022). The book prompts architects and anthropologists to think and act together and includes a broad range of examples on how the two disciplines can be combined in new and productive ways. [email protected]