Living in a small home: expectations, impression management and compensatory practices
Housing choices are commonly perceived as active and exercised at a fixed point. But individuals continually negotiate these trade-offs through the unfolding of their everyday life, particularly when choices result in forms of living outside normative housing expectations. This article considers trade-offs around house size made by residents of smaller homes. The article focuses on the space of expectation adjustment in a period of extended crisis in housing systems. The research found that individuals downgraded their own expectations of living space. In negotiating wider societal expectations, individuals actively sought to manage the impressions of others, whilst also constructing alternative narratives of small home living.
This article is an output from the CaCHE project, Living in a small home.
Authors: Dr Jenny Preece, Dr Kim McKee, Prof John Flint, Prof David Robinson
Read the full article (open access) in the Housing Studies journal:
Date: October 11, 2021 9:00 am
Author(s): Jenny Preece, Kim McKee, John Flint and David Robinson
Categorised in: Choice
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