Shared Housing, Shared Lives provides important theoretical and ethnographic accounts of shared living arrangements, ranging from the familiar spare-room lodger, and multi-person house-share, to strong ideological commitment to values of collective living. In a climate of austerity, many more people in the UK find themselves sharing their homes and habits with housemates, and the authors of this book invite you to step inside the material spaces and social, sensory proximities of day-to-day sharing. At last, an incisive and nuanced analysis of shared housing.
Dr Helen Jarvis, Reader in Social Geography, Newcastle University, UK
While standard nuclear family households loom large in imaginings of contemporary domestic relations, not least among planners and policy makers, in recent years, sharing a home with strangers has become a more common experience. Across developed societies, supportive links between life-course transitions and ascent up a housing ladder have become increasingly fragile and movement, markedly non-linear, with this pattern exacerbated by recent economic crises. This book represents the most advanced and thorough analysis of the current conditions of sharing households. It builds on a deep contextual knowledge of the rise and conditions of contemporary sharers as well as important empirical insights from English cases.
Professor Richard Ronald, Professor of Housing, Society and Space, Centre for Urban Studies, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Shared Housing, Shared Lives
With a growing population, rising housing costs and housing providers struggling to meet demand for affordable accommodation, more and more people in the UK find themselves sharing their living spaces with people from outside of their families at some point in their lives.
Focusing on sharers in a wide variety of contexts and at all stages of the life-course, Shared Housing, Shared Lives demonstrates how personal relationships are the key to whether shared living arrangements falter or flourish. Indeed, this book demonstrates how issues such as finances, domestic space and daily routines are all factors which can impact upon personal relationships and wider understandings of the home and privacy.
By directing attention towards people and relationships rather than bricks and mortar, Shared Housing, Shared Lives is essential reading for students and researchers in fields such as sociology, housing studies, social policy, cultural anthropology and demography, as well as for practitioners working in these areas
Sue Heath is Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Morgan Centre for Research into Everyday Lives, University of Manchester, UK.
Katherine Davies is Lecturer in Sociology at The University of Sheffield, UK.
Gemma Edwards is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Manchester, UK.
Rachael M. Scicluna is a Lecturer in the School of Anthropology and Conservation at the University of Kent, UK.
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Shared Housing, Shared Lives
Everyday Experiences Across the Lifecourse Sue Heath, Katherine Davies, Gemma Edwards and Rachael M. Scicluna
Shared Housing, Shared Lives
Everyday Experiences Across the Lifecourse
Sue Heath, Katherine Davies,
Gemma Edwards and
Rachael M. Scicluna
First published 2018
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2018 Sue Heath, Katherine Davies, Gemma Edwards and Rachael M. Scicluna
The right of Sue Heath, Katherine Davies, Gemma Edwards and Rachael M. Scicluna to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
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ISBN: 978-1-138-67353-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-317-20268-4 (ebk)
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by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
This book is based upon research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council: Under the Same Roof: The Everyday Relational Practices of Contemporary Communal Living (award reference ES/K006177/1). We are grateful to the ESRC for funding this research and are of course hugely indebted to all of the sharers who agreed to tell us about their experiences with such openness and generosity.
Throughout the project we received excellent advice and support from our advisory group members. Many thanks to the following people who were involved in the group at various points in the life of the project: Ella Wesolowicz and Rebecca Derham of Crisis, Matt Hutchinson of SpareRoom, Dawn Astin of St Vincents Housing Association and Accent Housing, Julie Craik and Mike Wright of Salford City Council, Sarah Lowe of Bolton at Home, Maria Brenton and Jo Gooding of the UK Cohousing Network, Lucy Woodbine of New Economy, Cathy Ayrton of MHA, Safia Griffin, and Jennifer Mason of the Morgan Centre.
We would also like to thank Jen Kettle for her excellent assistance, Kirsty Morrin and Laura Fenton for their invaluable help at various points in the projects life, and Emily Briggs and Elena Chiu at Routledge for their part in bringing the book to fruition. Thank you, too, to all our wonderful colleagues in the Morgan Centre for Research into Everyday Lives who took an interest in our project right from its inception. We extend our warmest thanks to Hazel Burke and Vicky Higham who were such an important part of the team.
