[Kaupunkitutkimus] VL: CFP brainstorm session RGS-IBG 2020: Housing and the value of attention

[Anna Kirveennummi]

*apologies for cross posting*

RGS-IBG 2020 Annual Conference, London, September 1-4
CFP brainstorm session: Housing and the value of attention

Houses require attention. Whether they are occupied by their owners, rented, squatted, closed for the season, abandoned, or shared with AirBnB guests, they depend on symbiotic human labor to keep them integral and functional as a dwelling. In order to provide us shelter, security, and sometimes wealth, they demand attention - often only in the background, as a persistent hum with occasional bursts of need. We respond with our labor to produce care and maintenance, sometimes consistently and repetitively and sometimes only in moments of crisis.
Much of this labor, and its value, is difficult to observe, subsumed within the normative 'sweat equity' of owner-occupancy or the ongoing reproductive labor of care. With increasing forms of housing mobilities - from the mobility of international investment capital to home-sharing practices like AirBnB - the labor of attention required by houses is becoming more palpable. This interactive paper session calls for short (5 minute) interventions about housing and ways of observing the value of attention, towards a collective discussion and possible further collaborations.

Some angles might be:
-Side industries of cleaning and guardianship related to AirBnB
-Caretaking of second or seasonal homes - from owner or caretaker perspective
-Contestations over care and maintenance of 'remittance' houses built by migrants
-Co-ownership of housing (e.g. vacation home) and management collectives
-Property guardianship of vacant homes
-International investment properties and the maintenance of 'property conditions'
-Communal housing and maintenance governance structures
-Multilocal lifestyles and maintenance of two houses for working and living
-Technologies for monitoring home security, cleanliness and repair conditions
Or methodological insights in investigating the perpetual hum of attention required by housing

Please send your abstract to (or register interest with) l.wagner at maastrichtuniversity.nl<mailto:l.wagner at maastrichtuniversity.nl> by Monday 10 February.

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Best,
Lauren B Wagner
Assistant Professor in Globalisation and Development
Programme Director, MA in Globalisation and Development Studies
Department of Society Studies
Maastricht University
l.wagner at maastrichtuniversity.nl<mailto:l.wagner at maastrichtuniversity.nl>
https://www.drlaru.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4778-7408
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Recently out!

Wagner, L. B. (2019). Choosing Teams, African Diaspora, 11(1-2), 179-192. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/18725465-01101003

Schaab, T. and Wagner, L. (2020), Expanding transnational care networks: comparing caring for families with caring for homes. Global Networks, 20: 190-207. doi:10.1111/glob.12257

Wagner, L. B. (2019) Contingently elite: affective practices of diasporic urban nightlife consumption, Urban Geography, 40:5, 665-683, DOI: 10.1080/02723638.2017.1390722

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