Intimate strangers: theorizing bodily knowledge in shared housing

Abstract

AbstractWhat does it mean to know and relate to others in a domestic context characterized by physical, but not necessarily emotional, proximity? This article investigates the role of the body in converting strangers into intimate others within the setting of shared housing. Addressing phenomenological work on situated bodies as sites of perception in dialogue with sociological theories of embodiment and attunement, the article explores tacit everyday knowledge and its implications for the (subjective) construction of intimacy. Combining multisited observations and interviews, the study explores the intimate significance of privileged forms of knowing (of) others—lived on and by the body—and how these, at times, become habits of also caring for others. Although living under the same roof is not enough for there to be intimacy, the present study shows that shared housing evokes transgression of personal borders that pushes the limits between intimate and distant others in ways that expand our notion of what it means to know someone.