Paper short abstract:

Itinerant boat dwellers in England are liminal to, and partially separated from, both capitalism and the British state. This is a result of their dwelling choice, a deliberate move to the margins of sedentary society.

Paper long abstract:

The itinerant boat dwellers (Boaters) of South East England have an unusual relationship with capitalism and the state; a relationship marked by a partial detachment from the processes which dominate the lives of their sedentary neighbours. They tend to resist capitalist consumption and the "hoarding" of wealth, particularly consumer valuables, and to subvert the cash economy by exchanging gifts, working for favours, trading, bartering, and operating cash-in-hand practices. Boaters' business enterprises aimed at other Boaters are not thought of as exploitative; as a participant explained to me "A coal boat [servicing the fuel needs of the waterways] isn't a capitalist enterprise, it is an expression of the community's need for coal!" Yet the Boaters do enter into the capitalist economy- most have jobs, utilise local shops and pay taxes. Similarly, Boaters are marginal to the state, often living without a postcode and beyond the legible (Scott, 1998) reach of the centralised bureaucracy (although the Boaters are not invisible or beyond the margins of the state and can make use of or be sought out by the police, health workers and other agents of governance). This paper interrogates the nature of this marginality or partial separation and describes how the Boaters seek to subvert capitalist and state systems both in rhetoric and in reality. It is argued that Boaters mark themselves out as deliberately liminal citizens, metaphorically betwixt and between the utopian freedom of the free-flowing water and the solidity of the sedentary, state-form, bankside.