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The meaning of home in Romania : views from urban owner–occupiers

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Soaita_The_meaning_of_home_Postprint.pdf (456.4Kb)
Date
03/2015
Author
Soaita, Adriana Mihaela
Keywords
Communist housing
Eastern Europe
Romania
Meanings of home
Homeownership
Housing privatisation
HD Industries. Land use. Labor
HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
NDAS
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Abstract
The post-communist privatisation of state flats to sitting tenants has transformed Romania into a nation of homeowners; yet its popularity appears perplexing given the poor quality of the stock and disappointing, given flat-owners’ subsequent lack of action regarding home improvement. Conversely, self-builders’ proactive agency moved them up the housing ladder. While this striking contrast draws attention to various structural conditions, which have constrained the former and enabled the latter, it also raises intriguing questions on residents’ meanings of home. By interrogating 48 homeowners’ narratives, this paper sustains the multilayered and multi-scalar meanings of home, which intertwine the socio-cultural territory of family and nation; the physical frame of one room or several dwellings; the emotional domain of object-memories; and the ontological realm epitomised by something as minimal as ‘my bed’. Findings demonstrate that flat-owners and self-builders do not significantly differ in their meanings of home but detached houses rather than flats facilitate more fully their appropriation.
Citation
Soaita , A M 2015 , ' The meaning of home in Romania : views from urban owner–occupiers ' , Journal of Housing and the Built Environment , vol. 30 , no. 1 , pp. 69-85 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-014-9396-3
Publication
Journal of Housing and the Built Environment
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-014-9396-3
ISSN
1566-4910
Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10901-014-9396-3
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/7644

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