St Andrews Research Repository

St Andrews University Home
View Item 
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • Philosophical, Anthropological & Film Studies (School of)
  • Social Anthropology
  • Social Anthropology Theses
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • Philosophical, Anthropological & Film Studies (School of)
  • Social Anthropology
  • Social Anthropology Theses
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • Philosophical, Anthropological & Film Studies (School of)
  • Social Anthropology
  • Social Anthropology Theses
  • View Item
  • Login
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

Making renting right : ethics of economy in the Edinburgh private rented sector

Date
28/06/2018
Author
Bridgman, Benjamin John
Supervisor
Rapport, Nigel
Reed, Adam
Funder
University of St Andrews. Department of Social Anthropology
Keywords
Private rented sector
Housing
Letting agency
Tenancy
Economic anthropology
Urban anthropology
Edinburgh
Scotland
Ethics
Metadata
Show full item record
Altmetrics Handle Statistics
Abstract
Recent decades have seen a shift in Scotland in terms of the provision of housing and housing-related services from the public sector to the private sector. In statistical terms, the proportion of Scottish households in the private rented sector has doubled during the past ten years. This thesis unpacks anthropologically the private rented sector as a locally-found concept in Edinburgh, largely through the medium of ‘property management’, another locally-found concept. Key questions concern how the private rented sector in Edinburgh is ‘managed’ at the vernacular level, how the ethics of property management take shape in Edinburgh in the context of this ongoing shift from the public to the private sectors, and how the property relations within the sector relate to existing debates in economic anthropology. The primary ethnographic material, based upon fieldwork in 2014 and 2015, is of an Edinburgh letting agency as archetypal property managers, though other material either was produced in conjunction with Shelter Scotland or stemmed from the tracing of further connections within the field. Engaging with the broader anthropology of ethics, a core conclusion is that processes of property management rest ultimately upon practices of ethics that take place at the ‘ordinary’ level. A parallel aim is to consider how anthropologists might produce ethnography of an economic ‘sector’, such as the private rented sector. Borrowing from Actor-Network Theory, I propose occupying a range of different vantage points in a given economic sector within a socially defined locale, such as the city, by following the connections encountered in the field, and then by allowing actors to perform both the social and the economic by tracing their associations through the production of the ethnographic text.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
Rights
Embargo Date: 2024-03-13
Embargo Reason: Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Electronic copy restricted until 13th March 2024
Collections
  • Social Anthropology Theses
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/16294

Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Advanced Search

Browse

All of RepositoryCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunderThis CollectionBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunder

My Account

Login

Open Access

To find out how you can benefit from open access to research, see our library web pages and Open Access blog. For open access help contact: openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Accessibility

Read our Accessibility statement.

How to submit research papers

The full text of research papers can be submitted to the repository via Pure, the University's research information system. For help see our guide: How to deposit in Pure.

Electronic thesis deposit

Help with deposit.

Repository help

For repository help contact: Digital-Repository@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Give Feedback

Cookie policy

This site may use cookies. Please see Terms and Conditions.

Usage statistics

COUNTER-compliant statistics on downloads from the repository are available from the IRUS-UK Service. Contact us for information.

© University of St Andrews Library

University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013532.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter