Contribution short abstract:

This paper examines processes of (un-)commoning within Azorean households by focusing on the tension between normative ideas of “casa”, an institution said to harmonically align intimate relations and economic subsistence, and its increasing commodification as tourist accommodation.

Contribution long abstract:

On the Azores, a Lusophone archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean, households make for a key site to study the intersections of kinship and economy. The vernacular concept of house, household or home (all: casa) is deemed capacious enough to embrace material building, subsistence model, and kinship relations. My interlocutors often described houses as pivotal nodes to align conjugal affection with economic necessity, generational aspiration with financial redistribution, or notions of self with practices of sharing objects and responsibilities. While in day-to-day reality, power struggles or feelings of alienation strain domestic spheres, “ser da casa” (to be of [a specific] house) is nonetheless a widespread idiom to value such domestic relationships and legitimize the commoning of resources and identity.

Over the past five years, an emerging tourism industry skyrocketed the price of any dwelling on São Jorge Island, Azores, while decades of abandonment and depopulation before had caused a massive surplus of, mostly empty, houses. Islanders suddenly find crumbling ruins, inhabited homes, or small stables to be equally valuable – a situation that foments tensions, forms of exclusion, and accumulation. Yet, since “casa” not only denotes an asset but is understood as a normative category commoning belonging, livelihood and intimate bonds, the recent spike in economic worth also affects ethics of economizing and relatedness. Tracing how island residents navigate their desires and recurrent failures to benefit from this trajectory, I argue that houses are pivotal media to understand how capitalism, kinship, and practices of (un)commoning reorganize people’s intimate relations.