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    What are homes made of? Building materials, DIY and the homeyness of homes

    Cox, Rosie (2016) What are homes made of? Building materials, DIY and the homeyness of homes. Home Cultures 13 (1), pp. 63-82. ISSN 1740-6315.

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    Abstract

    This paper considers the meanings that are attached to, and outcomes produced by, the things that houses are built from.  It reflects on the meanings attached to the ‘robustness’ of building materials for people who carry out DIY. DIY is important to some people as a way to build relationships and perform a culturally valued identity. For interviewees in New Zealand working on their own homes was an important aspect of their lives and more malleable building materials allowed such work and had positive connotations and produced feelings of homeyness in contrast to more robust ‘permanent’ materials.  The paper thus raises questions about how the built material of home relates to our feelings about it as well as highlighting the diverse practices and relationships which – literally – construct homes.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis, available online at the link above.
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): Houses, building materials, DIY, identity, New Zealand
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
    Research Centres and Institutes: Mapping Maternal Subjectivities, Identities and Ethics (MAMSIE), Gender and Sexuality, Birkbeck (BiGS)
    Depositing User: Rosie Cox
    Date Deposited: 18 Apr 2016 08:39
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:19
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/13573

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