Домът в контекста на деиндустриализация и миграция: икономически стратегии за социално разполагане
The Personal Home in the Context of Deindustrialization and Migration: Economic Strategies for Social Positioning.

Summary/Abstract: This article deals with the interrelation between contextually specific economic incentives and everyday practices and perceptions in the process of constructing and maintaining the desire for homeownership. Drawing upon 37 qualitative interviews with citizens of Vidin I investigate the manifestations of economic phenomena in the respondents ‘mental maps’ and the way they are rationalized through the lens of homeownership. I analytically distinguish three main notions of social materialization of this intersection. Firstly, the respondents’ ability to influence the socio-economic environment is regarded in a negative relationship with the importance of homeownership in the biographical trajectories. Secondly, the concept of ‘home’ is perceived as an ‘anchor’ that could either provide protection from the economic instabilities or could deprive the respondents of the opportunity to be set free from the spatial and social context of Vidin. Lastly, the lack of a group social actor in this local context allows for the traditional family to emerge as the strongest non-institutional subject. The traditional family is transformed into the locus of individual and group agency realization.

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