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Abstract
The domestic home is usually theorized as negotiated and structured space-time and as an emotional attachment to people and places. However, the increasing number of people living on their own brings about the question of how home is experienced, embodied, and narrated by solo-living individuals, especially in terms of ordering and stability under the flexible and fluid nature of some other realms, such as paid work. Following the affordance approach in studies of home, our aim is to integrate research on practices, materialities, and narratives of domestic homes. Our main question concerns how home is perceived, experienced, and performed by childless solo-living people and how they understand the stability of their dwelling—one of the main characteristics of home in social theory. To broaden this “traditional” concept of home, we build upon the emphasis on stability with the notion of flow, as presented by Deleuze and Guattari, along with the concept of boundary work, to describe the processes of delineation between these two from the level of mundane “doings.” Through in-depth interviews conducted using the go-along technique, combined with walking through the dwellings and some of the neighborhoods, we explore the ambivalence of stability, permanence, and temporariness, and the interconnection between materialities and meanings. The appropriation of space and time enables solo-living people to dwell comfortably, while also materializing and stabilizing the sometimes unwanted state of singleness or living alone. In contrast, the unfinished nature of some homes indicates a provisional state of being, pointing out that the current situation is still not satisfactory, being more open to change; however, it might lead to permanent living in unpleasant or even un-homey homes.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported by The Czech Science Foundation (GACR) [grant number GA13-32237S].
Notes
1. In spite of the fact that the term “living alone” is usually used as a synonym for “solo-living,” we prefer the second concept, because it is less connected to the term “loneliness” as one of the (stigmatizing) characteristics associated with the experience of solo-living in popular discourse.
2. We use the term “singles” here to describe young adults (20–39 yours old) living in single-person households without a partner. From the theoretical point of view, however, this definition is too simplistic: In the context of census data, it is actually not possible to distinguish between married and unmarried couples, so the category “single” also includes those cohabitating and others. We also see the age limit of 20–39 as potentially problematic, which may be legitimate in the case of census data analysis, but on the other hand implies that “single” is a temporary status, suitable only for young adults and inappropriate in later life.
3. Blunt and Dowling (Citation2006) stress the multiscalar nature of the concept of home with various levels of belonging and attachment, from the very personal level of one’s own body (Madanipour Citation2003) to the domestic places and wider collectives such as cities, nations, or other imagined communities (Blunt and Varley Citation2004). To distinguish between all these levels and dimensions, some authors use the more specific concept of “domestic home” to denote specifically private dwellings, even if they see them interlinked with the public sphere and other “non-domestic spaces” (Hollows Citation2008: 4).
4. Three of our participants were willing to perform a walk with us, which we took from the place of living to the place of work. At the same time, we asked them to show us important landmarks, whether they were related to their way to work or were simply regarded as important places of their city. In all cases, these were mainly places such as parks, public institutions, or enterprises (cafés, restaurants, other shops), which participants either regularly used or that were connected to memories of persons or events important in their lives, or both. This part of the data enabled us to look beyond the spaces of apartments and houses. It therefore corresponds to the multiscalar notion of home. It appears that for many of our research participants (not only for these three), the city is a very important context in constituting the experience of home (Galčanová and Vacková Citation2014).
5. See note 4.
6. Petra is one of two participants who did not let us into her apartment—it is too private a space for her.
7. We are aware of the relative homogeneity of our sample in terms of class and education. Constructing a more diverse sample, such as women over 40, men with lower education in smaller towns, childless adults with experience of divorce, etc. would probably enrich our conclusions. However, the limitations are based on theoretical (according to some authors, a more homogenous sample enables the researcher to understand the experience more deeply [cf. Smith Citation2004]) as well as practical (the limit of two years for the research project) considerations. Future research should focus not only on other population segments, but also aspire to become longitudinal research in order to grasp changing identities, practices, and meanings related to home over the life course.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Lucie Galčanová
Lucie Galčanová works at the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. Her current interests lie in the field of the sociology of housing and home, urban studies, and cultural gerontology. She cooperates with the Department of Sociology (FSS MU), where she lectures on the sociology of space and architecture as well as the sociology of housing.
Barbora Vacková
Barbora Vacková is a researcher at the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. She is interested in urban utopias, urban planning, and modernist housing. She cooperates with the Department of Sociology (FSS MU), where she lectures on the sociology of space and architecture as well as the sociology of housing.