Coastal homemaking: Navigating housing ideals, home realities, and more-than-human processes

Abstract

As urban populations expand, high natural amenity locales-forests, bushland, and coasts-are being transformed into highly desired, lucrative locations for new housing. This paper examines what it means to live in such an environment, tallying between the realised dream of that lifestyle and the everyday challenges (financial and labour) of navigating the elements at home. To do so, we bring two conceptual approaches into conversation: cultural geographies of home and homemaking, recognising home as a more-than-human process; and architecturally inflected geographies of buildings, attendant to building materials and socio-technical practices of maintenance and repair. Drawing on semi-structured walking interviews with 24 residents of a new coastal housing development in southern Sydney, Australia, the paper examines how coastal conditions and elements accelerate material decay, inciting and directing everyday homemaking practices: both proactive, in material selection, and reactive, in cleaning, repairing, maintaining, and replacing. We conclude by considering the differing economic rationalities of navigating the elements, and subsequent implications for household sustainability.

Elements of desirability: exploring meaningful dwelling features from resident’s perspective

“…Along social sciences in general, housing studies have turned the attention towards socio-material practices, action, embodiment, affects, and feelings related to spaces, environments and material settings of our lives. In other words, considerations beyond the symbolic meanings and representations of spaces and environments have become prominent (Clapham, 2011;Gabriel & Jacobs, 2008;Gillon & Gibbs, 2019;Hitchings, 2004;Imrie, 2004;Jacobs & Merriman, 2011;Smith, 2004).…”

Stream or Discharge: Using the Hydrosocial Cycle to Explore the Meanings of the Waimapihi Stream in Te Whanganui-a-Tara-Wellington, Aotearoa-New Zealand

“…Therefore, understanding the role of fish in defining, adding value to, and producing a stream is required when trying to understand the Waimapihi under a hydrosocial lens. Taking a more-than-human approach enabled the exploration of the interaction of the fish with the built environment of the pipe and the city (Gillon and Gibbs, 2019). The examination of the bodies of fish is an example of the more-than-human approach taken, which informed the exploration of the perceptions of the fish in the pipe, not just those of humans.…”

“…The built infrastructure of the pipe has significant impacts on the direction of flow and state of the waters of the Waimapihi, and informs how it is understood. Gillon and Gibbs (2019) discuss how a more-than-human approach could be used to explore the built environment, and how structural, maintenance, repair, and spatial geographies could be examined. Their approach examined the instability of the built form, how it is constantly being made or unmade; which provided an example of how this approach could be used to explore the piped section of the Waimapihi, specifically the impacts of age and maintenance of the pipe and the development of the city (Gillon and Gibbs, 2019).…”

“…While Ben compares that to the top section made of concrete, "I think the top section of that is a concrete pipe and not a brick pipe, so it must be pretty smooth on the inside" (Interview with Ben, 19 September 2019). Exploring how the pipe materials have the capacity to act, alone or in alliance with the fish and water, illuminates some of the ongoing more-than-human interactions occurring in the Waimapihi (Gillon and Gibbs, 2019). It is not just the water flow but the water quality that impacts fish presence and movement, Ben remarked that "they have not just the physical barriers … but the water quality can't have been that great going down there" (Interview with Ben, 19 September 2019).…”

“…Using the hydrosocial approach and considering the interaction between the various more-than-human entities, such as the pipe and the fish, encourages examination of practical components such as the structure of the pipe and how that influences the movement of fish (Gillon and Gibbs, 2019). A stream management approach that takes into account fish agency, infrastructure, social systems, and the fluctuating relationships between them, raises interesting possibilities for the future of the piped section of the Waimapihi.…”