Abstract:
To be homeless is to be defined by the perceived lack of something conceptual – homeless. Yet homeless people cannot simply disappear. They must exist somewhere. This paper draws on archaeological fieldwork and research conducted with contemporary homeless people in Bristol and York (2008-2013). Presenting maps, photographs and oral testimonies, objects and places of significance to contemporary homeless people are considered in relation to their domestic function.
Resume blurb:
Rachel Kiddey has just submitted her PhD thesis to the Department of Archaeology at the University of York and is eagerly awaiting her viva! Rachael holds a Masters in Historical Archaeology from the University of Bristol (2003) and previously worked for ten years as a journalist and broadcaster with the BBC.
About inHabit
The inHabit: Text, Object and Domestic Space research network brings together leading practitioners from a variety of institutions and disciplines to move beyond compartmentalized perspectives to embrace the complex and multi-faceted nature of domestic life. inHabit focuses on the relationships between people, objects and texts within domestic space. These are a series of concepts which are usually considered and conceptualized within discrete disciplinary frameworks, including (but not limited to) literary studies, anthropology, archeology, histories of art, architecture and design.
Domestic space is an important, yet hitherto neglected, framework for exploring how the conflicting demands of being an individual and being part of a group are expressed, negotiated and accommodated. The inHabit network will explore those tensions which, manifested in the domestic domain, underlie human existence, through binaries like ease and unease, comfort and discomfort, sufficiency and insufficiency, security and anxiety, continuity and innovation, familiarity and novelty.
For further information please contact:
Oliver Cox (oliver.cox@history.ox.ac.uk) - Director, Thames Valley Country House Partnership
Dr Antony Buxton(antony.buxton@conted.ox.ac.uk) - Department for Continuing Education
Dr Linda Hulin (linda.hulin@arch.ox.ac.uk)
inHabit: Text, Object and Domestic Space
Audience: Open to all
