UK first research funded by the ESRC
“Without building durable and shared sites of worth outside of market relations, we are stuck with the valuation of worth as productivity.”
– Amelia Horgan, 2021, p. 83
Continue reading “You Have Been Tricked! Productivity Does Not Equal Worth”
“The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive.
Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you.
You open your safe to find only ashes.”
– Annie Dillard #WritingCommnunity #WritingLife #phd #AcademicTwitter
— Alice Wilson (@neither_both) November 13, 2021
I love Annie Dillard. She is wise and kind and generous and an exquisite writer. She is all the things I want to be.
In the spirit of giving away what I have learned freely and abundantly, I am sharing some excerpts from the field notes journal I have been keeping these last three years of doing my PhD.
These entries chart my progress and discomfort; two things which often go hand in hand.
The Western distinction between the public and private spheres has been crucial in confining both the physical mobility and the identity of women throughout history.
By creating the domestic sphere as the place specifically of women, a joint control was exercised over the spaces they could inhabit and the ways they could identify and experience themselves.
Belgian folklorist Arnold Van Gennep argued that there are three distinct phases of liminality. Like a typical sociologist, he positioned liminality as a process rather than a destination.
What follows is the transcript of the interview I did with the fantastic Lucy Dearlove for her award winning podcast, Lecker.
Over the last eighteen months, I have spoken with over 35 women who have designed their own tiny houses. These women are always fascinating, and each one of them shares common strands with the stories of the others, despite being very different people.
In 2015, a YouGov poll found that 37% of Brits were adamant that their job was completely pointless. This is dispiriting given that the UK has the second longest working hours in Europe, second only to the USA.
That’s a lot of people spending a lot of time feeling like what they are doing is meaningless.
Continue reading “Think Your Job is Pointless? You’re Probably Right.”
Capitalism will, where possible, quash any activities which are not co-opted into commercial producing or consuming.
Human beings love meaning. We can’t get enough of it. It infuses every thought we have, every opinion we claim as our own, every purchase we make. We especially love peppering it in where there is none to be organically found (see: religion).
Continue reading “The Meaning of Tiny Houses: Successful and Subversive”
I am now half way through my PhD. Theoretically, I should have some kind of idea what is going on.What have all of these women been saying to me over the last 18 months? What are the common threads that weave the disparate and varied stories together?
Continue reading “Capitalism & Patriarchy: Best Buds For Life”