Paper short abstract:

My paper will weave together a series of ethnographic short stories, born out of rumours, gossip and newspaper reports, that relate to the increasing number of empty properties in Central London, while simultaneously investigating the scope of storytelling within anthropology.

Paper long abstract:

When it comes to empty homes, most people in London have a story to tell. These stories come in different shapes and with different levels of insistence on factual accuracy. Some stories are shaped as complaints against the councils, and some are shaped as suspicions about new developments and new owners, while others as rumours about the ghosts that live in empty mansions. They may be referring to squatters that often occupy empty properties, or to houses with old and aloof inhabitants, where silence and stillness can stir up concern, or perhaps to homes which continue to get renovated, repaired and maintained by owners who live far away. I will compile an odd number of ill-fitting stories, which cannot be categorised into any single political narrative, to understand the ways in which people live alongside empty homes. Some of the characters of my stories comprise of two Polish workers who lost their lives while transporting a sofa to the second floor of an empty home in Cadogan Square, a bucket that was placed by the residents of the Sutton Estate to combat a leak that was left unattended by the council, a man obsessed with murder stories connected to his estate, and a group of cleaners who take care of empty homes in Chelsea. Through a patchwork of these distinct yet related stories, I hope to bring together the study of the home and the wider landscapes of mobile capital.