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P14


has 1 film 1
Thinking about alternative modes of dwelling: what makes a house a home? 
Convenors:
Esther Anderson (Queensland Tourism Industry Council)
Kellie Brandenburg (University of Southern Queensland)
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Format:
Panel
Sessions:
Friday 26 November, -
Time zone: Australia/Sydney

Short Abstract:

Dwellings that differ from normative conceptions of housing are increasingly understood as intentional, rather than reluctant, lifestyle choices. Decoupling status and ownership from assumptions about housing, this panel tours caravans, tiny homes, and shacks to ask, 'what makes a house a home?'

Long Abstract:

Alternative modes of dwelling which differ from normative conceptions of 'ideal' housing are increasingly understood as representative of a more intentional lifestyle choice, rather than reluctant adaptations. While the much-maligned American trailer park (Formanack 2018) or permanent caravan park residency in Australia (Newton 2015), as examples, have long functioned as responses to widespread inequality and limited access to more desirable housing, there is a richness to these dwellings that is obscured by stigmatisation.

Recently, public attention has shifted towards equally small, but seemingly more palatable homes. The #vanlife or #tinyhome movements, as examples, symbolise minimalistic privilege, offer greater freedom of mobility, and contribute to the development of new forms of domestic cosmopolitanism. These dwellings decouple non-traditional housing from stigma and offer different choices for tourists, temporary migrants, people of low-socioeconomic status, people seeking a greater connection with natural environments, and grey nomads (along with their American 'sunbird' and 'snowbird' counterparts).

Scholars across many disciplines are focusing their attentions on taken-for-granted ideas about status embedded in these shifting notions of housing, and by extension, ownership. This panel is particularly interested in the way the home, regardless of location or materiality, can be "our first universe, a real cosmos in every sense of the word" (Bachelard 1964, p. 4). We invite papers relating to all modalities of alternative dwelling - such as caravans or trailers, tiny homes, shacks, and huts - asking the question 'what makes a house a home?'

Accepted papers:

Session 1 Friday 26 November, 2021, -
Panel Video visible to paid-up delegates