2009 Housing and Theory Symposium State Library 5-6 March

1. Institute for Social Research Swinburne Institute of Technology & The Centre for Design RMIT 2009 Housing and Theory SymposiumState Library5-6 March The role of the home in adjustment to retrenchment Hans Pieters PHD Candidate Flinders Institute for Housing, Urban and Regional Research

2. They got married early, never had no moneyThen when he got laid off they really hit the skidsHe started up his drinking, then they started fightingHe took it pretty badly, she took both the kidsShe said: "I'm not standing by, to watch you slowly dieSo watch me walking, out the door, out the door, out the door"She said, "Shove it, Jack, I'm walking out the ###### door"“To her door”: Paul Kelly 1987 • “Coping with unemployment, like all social behaviour and experience, comes into existence in a process of continuous renegotiation over time involving fundamental issues of power and agency at the intersection of the individual, broader family, social, and community settings with powerful social institutional arrangements” Source: Fryer and Fagan 1993:119

3. How to reconcile Putnam (1993:156) “The modern home is inconceivable except as a terminal (within networks), affording the benefits of but also providing legitimating support to a vast infrastructure facilitating flows of energy, goods, people and messages” Douglas (1991) home, anthropologically, as coordination/moral community Kaika (2004)– “how the modern house becomes the modern home ( an anonymous protected utopia ) through a dual practice of exclusion: though ostracizing the undesired elements of the social as well as the undesired elements of natural elements and processes” Kearns et al (2000) Access to psycho-social benefits of home more influenced by quality of neighbourhood and house than by tenure Dovey (2005:367) on Giddens “Giddens suggests that globalization and modernity have transformed the very tissue of everyday experience – the home is infused to its core with local/global tensions. This does not signal a loss of “home” rather it is the end of the closed local home-place where singular identities are linked to semantic and spatial enclosure”

4. Contents • Theoretical framework • Research question • Research design • Methodology • Findings • Discussion

5. Theoretical framework • Wanted to capture interplay of time, place, identity, agency and structure • Clapham’s Housing Pathways Analytical framework as entry point • Need to theorize adjustment to retrenchment and the home Integration model (Moos and Schaefer) Stress model (Waters 2000) Narratives of job loss (Ezzy 2001) Levels of meaning of home (Gurney and Means 1993) Experienced and imagined home (Watkins and Hosier 2005) Ontological narratives (Winstanley and Thorns 2002) • Home/work linkages Interdependency of home and work (Hanson and Pratt, 1986) Place embeddedness of coordination of home and work (Jarvis 1999) Macro level – Housing and labour market interactions (eg Oswald 1996)

6. Coping with unemployment Source:Waters 2000

7. Source: Watkins and Hosier 2005

8. Research question • How does the home mediate the process of adjustment to retrenchment?

9. Research design • Longitudinal • Mixed methods – quantitative and qualitative • Triangulation – getting the picture through aggregate data on behaviour, limited subjective experience and meanings, and narratives

10. Methodology • Workers retrenched from Mitsubishi Motors in Adelaide from 2004; 700 voluntary, 600 involuntary (not to be confused with latest round of sackings in 2008 when plant closed) • Three waves of survey data from initially 372 workers – health, housing, labour market, social capital; quantitative and qualitative; approx one year apart • Two waves of in depth but very structured interviews with subset of 38 workers; approx one year apart • Three waves of survey data from control group

12. Stage 1

13. Stage 3

14. Stage 1 Importance of home

15. Importance of home and tenure

16. Stage 1 Relationship between importance of home and current employment situation

17. Stage 2 Relationship between tenure and employment status Source: Beer,2008

18. Discourse Words used by respondents Emotions Family, Children, Safety, We are very secure here Back region (Haven) Privacy, Come back to, Go home to, Haven Negative/Instrumental Lonely, Stopping off point, Don’t like being in this home, Two dogs were killed due to street traffic Relaxation Relax, Take it easy, Unwind Comfort Something your comfortable with; Comfortable Safety Feel safe Ownership This is your home, We have the house build, Somewhere that was our own, its mine, Its all paid, All of the mortgage is paid Personalisation Because I do the garden, Its just ours, everything is ours; Make changes that suit yourself, Autonomy (Autonomy) When I want to, Where I want to; Shut the door, The world stays outside, Do my own thing Front-region (Status) No problems with neighbours, Invite over friends, Will never leave the area, Never move to out of South, Area is good What you make it What you make of it Other Hub, base, in the middle, Responses to Q. “..what does home mean to you” Source: based on Gurney 1996

19. Examples of in depth interview questions • Does the expression “Great Australian Dream” have any personal significance • Are memories of home important • Would you ever leave this place • Best and worst things about living here

20. Narratives • 6 elements. • Introduction. • What and where is home and how is it made? • What did it mean to work for MMAL?. • Personal and household impacts of retrenchment – positive and negative • Coping strategies and tactics. • The future: This final element engages the hopes and plans of the respondents as they consolidate their post retrenchment situation

21. Discussion • Challenges of working in and across disciplines