Appropriations: Dynamics of Domestic Space Negotiations in Italian Middle-Class Working Families

Abstract

This article concerns the dynamics of domestic space `appropriation' in Italian middle-class working families. The article starts from a background in multidisciplinary literature, mostly in the area of ethnographical and psychological studies, where the concepts of both `ownership' and `territoriality' prove to be inadequate. A dynamic view of space appropriations is chosen instead: starting from `outside appropriations', the presence of marked thresholds is then considered. Secondly, domestic space appropriations within the house are analysed in a purely qualitative way. There are selective and `predominant' appropriations by a single family member and by the whole household; questions of sovereignty and painful `proscriptions' (kingdoms and exiles) arise when specific parts of the house pertain to a given individual. But there are also unstable appropriations which reveal that there are negotiations in progress according to the family's power dynamics. Thus defined, the categories of domestic space also provide a key to understanding the families' relationships.