Paper short abstract:

Many people appreciate having summer homes in the countryside. The summer houses are often more connected with continuity during a lifetime than the urban home. The research aim is to interpret different comprehensions of the feeling to be at home in a summer house in the era of late modernity.

Paper long abstract:

Many people appreciate having summer homes in the countryside to complement apartments or private homes in urban areas. It is not unusually that summer houses stands for more continuity in a person's lifetime than the urban home, which has changed addresses several times. One aim of this ethnological project is to discuss the summer homeowners' perceptions of their houses by the Swedish west coast in the present era of late modernity. The purpose is to compare the summer homeowners' identification with their summer homes today, with references to their local and global experiences. Attention will be paid to how urban summer homeowners describe themselves in interplay with the environment; summer homes with historical and esthetical values; private and public spheres in the summer resort. Special focus gives to their memories of houses and artefacts connected to summer experiences from the 1950s and further on. These items will be interpreted as material belongings which are corresponding to social events, for instance meetings with relatives and neighbours. Owners of summer houses also describe their interest for old houses and their preferences considering esthetical values of belongings related to contexts of cultural heritage. The research aim is to interpret different comprehensions of the feeling to be at home in a summer house and local society in the era of late modernity.