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Introduction: Anthropology at Home

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Introduction
Anthropology at Home

Irene Cieraad

T HE REASONS for the characteristics o f our domestic surroundings seem self-

evident, preventing us firom asking such obvious questions as: W h y do we cover
our interior walls and windows? W h y is i t that we seldom put a bed i n the Idtchen?
W h y store d i r t y l a u n d r y i n h i d d e n corners? Answers solely referring to aesthetics,
status, privacy, or hygiene are not completely satisfactory. W h a t do we express i n our
decorating and segregating practices i n the domestic space? The focus o f this b o o k
is on Western domestic space, a field o f study i n w h i c h several disciplines have been
involved since the postwar p e r i o d . For example, there is a vast a m o u n t o f A n g l o -
American literature on the history o f domestic architecture by architectural, art, and
social historians (Clark 1986; D a u n t o n 1983; Foy and Schlereth 1992; H a n d l i n 1979;
Hayden 1981,1984; M o t z and Browne 1988; Muthesius 1982; Rybczynski 1987; Schlereth
1982; Stamp and Goulancourt 1986; Swenarton 1981; W r i g h t 1980,1981).
Analyses and research concentrating o n contemporary domestic architecture are
f o r the most part w r i t t e n b y housing sociologists and h u m a n geographers. I n gen-
eral, however, these disciplines focus on quantitative analyses o f housing conditions
and interior decoration as indexes o f social class, ethnicity, and status (Chapman 1955;
Felson 1976; Fox 1985; Halle 1993; Saunders 1990; Warner i960; Z u k i n 1982). Quali-
tative research on contemporary Western domestic space is scarce, and interpreta-
tions o f domestic practices are even more exceptional. The few publications that
touch u p o n these subjects derive f r o m diverse domains o f research, such as ethnol-
ogy, material culture studies, consumer studies, and environmental psychology.
These publications o f t e n reflect n a t i o n a l research t r a d i t i o n s . For example, i n
present-day French social sciences there is a keen interest i n the material aspects o f
daily life, m i x i n g an ethnological t r a d i t i o n o f material culture studies w i t h m o d e r n
French sociology o f lifestyle and consumption (Baudrillard 1981; Bourdieu 1984; Pel-
legrino 1994; Segalen and Le W i t a 1993; Warnier 1994). The same holds true f o r the
Irene Cieraad
Scandinavian studies (Frylonan and L ö f g r e n 1987; GuUestad 1984); tlie British stud-
ies o f contemporary material culture deal w i t h the " m u t e d " experiences o f con-
sumers, notably w o m e n (Allan and Crow 1989; A t t f i e l d and K i r k h a m 1989; Douglas
and Isherwood 1979; M a t r i x 1984; M i l l e r 1987; P u t n a m and N e w t o n 1990; Roberts
1991), a focus that seems to be related to the postwar t r a d i t i o n o f oral history and
worldng-class studies i n British sociology.
Most A m e r i c a n studies concerned w i t h contemporary Western domestic space,
however, are rooted i n psychology, i n particular i n environmental psychology. 1 The
crucial theme i n these studies revolves a r o u n d housing and i d e n t i t y ( A l t m a n and
Gauvain 1981; Cooper 1974; Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton 1981; D u n c a n
1981; D u n c a n and D u n c a n 1976; K r o n 1983; Lawrence 1987; Porteous 1976; Sadalla et
al. 1987). A p o w e r f u l m i x o f strains f r o m diverse research backgrounds, ranging f r o m
psychology, sociology, and anthropology to material culture studies, is exemplified
i n American consumer studies ( D i t t m a r 1992; G o u l d and Schiffer 1981; McCracken
1988,1989).
But why is an anthropological approach i n the study o f Western domestic space
still missing? This is even more curious considering the fact that there is an estab-
lished research t r a d i t i o n i n the anthropological discipline focusing o n "the house,"
that is to say, o n the t r i b a l house or on exotic domestic spaces. I n this t r a d i t i o n the
internal structure o f the t r i b a l house is symbolically interpreted as a visual m o d e l
of the tribe's or the group's cosmology and social hierarchy (Cunningham 1973; D o u g -
las 1972; Fortes 1949; Kent 1990). One o f the most p r o m i n e n t social hierarchies is the
gender division reflected i n the spatial structure o f most tribal houses, i n exotic do-
mestic spaces, and even i n the f l o o r plans o f nineteenth-century houses (Ardener
1981; Spain 1992). However, a silent o p i n i o n among symbolic-oriented anthropolo-
gists, trapped as they are i n the o l d evolutionistic l i n k between symbolism and p r i m -
i t i v i s m , is that Western people lost this precious and authentic symbolic drive
somewhere i n the course o f the civilizing process. Nineteenth-century industriali-
zation and urbanism are generally considered to have dealt deathblows to residual
popular symbolism i n the West (Cieraad 1991a).
However, we still express ourselves symbolically i n the spatial arrangements and
decorations o f our houses and the s u r r o u n d i n g public space (Cieraad 1991b, 1993).
W h e n invited to show that anthropology can make a c o n t r i b u t i o n i n the interpre-
tation o f Western domestic space, I called f o r papers o n that topic and on related is-
sues such as domestic practices and domestic objects. M y call resulted i n specimens
f r o m all disciplines and research traditions involved i n the study o f domestic sfiace
1. The American psychological tradition has an Italian counterpart. See RuUo's (1987) bib-
liography on psychological research.
Anthropology at Home
i n the West. As m i g h t be expected, anthropologists were n o t overrepresented.
Nonetheless, I aimed to select articles c o n t r i b u t i n g to the development o f an an-
thropology o f domestic space. I n such a study the key w o r d is "meaning"; the i n q u i r y
engenders questions o n the construction o f meaning, on the interpretation o f mean-
ing and imagery, and o n the relationship between meaning and practice.
For the last t w o decades global themes have dominated the anthropological dis-
cipline, even t h o u g h anthropology's h i s t o r y is f o r the most part w r i t t e n along re-
gional or colonial hnes. Reintroducing a spatial category such as "domestic space," i n
combination w i t h a regional focus o n the West, may seem a regressive act.^ However,
an anthropology o f domestic space is by d e f i n i t i o n rooted i n the West. The concept
o f domestic space and its conceptual counterpart, "public space," evolved i n a West-
ern historical setting o f rising u r b a n i s m , tracing back to seventeenth-century E u -
rope.3 I n this context historians Idee Simon Schama (1987) claim a pivotal role f o r the
seventeenth-century D u t c h Republic w i t h its flourishing merchants' towns.
The concept o f domestic space introduces n o t o n l y an inevitable historical d i -
mension, b u t also a temporal dimension often clad i n nostalgic images. The n o t i o n
o f domesticity is one o f the most p o w e r f u l images related to domestic space. I t is
the i n t e r t w i n i n g o f the n o t i o n o f domestic space and the image o f domesticity that
is examined i n chapter 2, "Domesticity i n Dispute: A Reconsideration o f Sources."
The author o f the chapter, H e i d i de Mare, a D u t c h architectural historian, contests
the fixed borders historians attributed to Dutch seventeenth-century domestic space.
A l t h o u g h the f r o n t door marked the jurisdictional boundary between the sovereign
domestic space o f the burgher and the town's jurisdiction, i t d i d not yet paraUel the
behavioral and emotional boundary between public and private space we are f a m i l -
iar w i t h today.
Likewise the image o f p r i m o r d i a l D u t c h domesticity is mistaken, according to de
Mare. This image was created i n the nineteenth century, at the time o f an almost i n -
ternational glorification o f the arts and works o f the D u t c h seventeenth century. I n
the eyes o f nineteenth-century beholders the lifelike portrayal o f D u t c h domestic
scenes reflected the nostalgic domesticity and peaceful family life they longed for. This
image o f domesticity has haunted us ever since.
I n chapter 3, " D u t c h Windows: Female Virtue and Female Vice," I illustrate the his-
torical process o f the f i x i n g o f the borders o f domestic space. The female predica-
2. In his introduction to Anthropology at Home Messerschmidt (1981) legitimizes conduct-
ing anthropological fieldwork in one's home country, referring to changes in the North Ameri-
can academic environment, from difficulties in funding research abroad to the lost monopoly
on exotic research "paradises." The anthropology of domestic space can become a native re-
search paradise illustrating the exotic in the familiar.
3. See Coontz (1988) on the origins of private life in the United States.
Irene Cieraad
ment, or the "domestication o f women," is tied to the s o l i d i f y i n g borders o f West-
ern domestic space. For example, i n the course o f the eighteenth century the wives o f
D u t c h burghers lost their controlling position as border guards i n the " f r o n t house,"
a l i m i n a l zone between the domestic space o f the home and the public space o f the
street.'' The progressive retreat o f upper-class w o m e n f r o m the border and especially
f r o m the most fragile part o f that border—the w i n d o w — c u l m i n a t e d i n the nine-
teenth-century domestication o f women.
This process was typical for the West i n general, b u t again the case o f seventeenth-
century H o l l a n d adds a particular element to the history o f women's domestication,
namely the curious symbolic l i n k between the female hymen and the w i n d o w pane.
The h o n o r o f the house and the h o n o r o f the females i n h a b i t i n g the house were
metaphorically related by linldng both fragile borders. This symbolism, ahhough long
forgotten, is stUl enacted i n current D u t c h female behavior t o w a r d the w i n d o w .
Cleaning the w i n d o w was once an exclusively female affair, as decorating the w i n d o w
still is. Present-day D u t c h w i n d o w prostitution is the most notorious example o f this
forgotten symbolic link.
The issue o f forgotten symbolism brings to the fore the fact that meaning and
meaning construction are n o t necessarily conscious affairs, b u t are essentially related
to and sustained i n practice.' M e a n i n g dissolves w h e n i t is n o t enacted t i m e and
again. The recurrent practices i n w h i c h meanings are i m b u e d and coined are desig-
nated i n the anthropological vocabulary as "rituals." The religious and primitive over-
tones o f the t e r m seem to i n h i b i t its application i n situations we encounter day by
day. W h e n anthropologists apply the t e r m to everyday situations i n the West they
do it joldngly by "tribalizing" their subjects, such as calling Americans "the Nacirema"
( M i n e r 1956) or describing England as "Native L a n d " (Barley 1989).
However, chapter 4, "The Ins and Outs o f the Hall: A Parisian Example," w r i t t e n
by C é l i n e Rosselin, a French anthropologist, is a serious attempt at describing an
everyday r i t u a l o f passage. She illustrates h o w a visitor's entering and leaving a
Parisian apartment follows a r i t u a l procedure akin to the ceremonial rites o f pas-
sage i n traditional societies as once described by Van Gennep ([1909] 1981). She points
out that domestic borders are not just materialized i n brick and mortar, b u t are also
c o n f i r m e d and expressed i n the residents' behavior toward visitors. This chapter i l -
lustrates n o t only international differences i n the demarcations o f domestic space,
but also regional differences between urban and r u r a l areas. U r b a n France is k n o w n
for its f o r t i f i e d houses and apartment buildings; there are many barriers to cross be-
4. This situation is quite similar to the traditional American front porch, as described by
Becldiam (1988).
5. Cohen (1986) discusses the meaning and interpretation of symbols and symbolic mark-
ing in the West, especially the "unconsciousness" of symbolism.
Anthropology at Home
fore entering a French living r o o m . Rosselin describes h o w occupants o f one-room
apartments w h o lacked the extra physical barrier o f a hallway felt the urge to i m -
provise one.
To the American Susan Carlisle (1982) these fortified French houses m i r r o r the for-
mal social behavior o f the French i n general. By relating physical barriers u p o n en-
tering a house to the experienced psychic barriers i n social contact, Carlisle runs the
danger o f reading an interpretation straight f r o m the static material structure o f the
house. Therefore, i t is i m p o r t a n t to r e m i n d ourselves that, although the material
structure o f houses m i g h t n o t have changed f o r decades or even a century, the i n -
habitants' behavior d i d change over the decades, as d i d the meaning related to the
material structure.
A n intended, although n o t always consciously defined, change o f meaning is ex-
emplified i n chapter 5, "T've Always Fancied O w n i n g Me O w n Lion': Ideological M o -
tivations i n External House Decoration by Recent Homeowners," w r i t t e n by the
British sociologist John Dolan. He describes how i n the 1980s the "right to buy" hous-
ing policy o f Britain's Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher stimulated
renters to b u y their rental homes f r o m the local authorities. Those w h o d i d so i m -
mediately tried to differentiate their facades f r o m their neighbors'. By relating types
of alterations and facade decorations to Thatcher's conservative rhetoric, D o l a n con-
structs a typology o f these homeowners. T h r o u g h political symbolism, the alterations
and decorations express the national divide between owners and renters. Nostalgic
imagery so widely used w h e n domestic space is concerned is translated i n t o p o l i t i -
cal iconography when related to Thatcher's stress on Britain's glorious past.^
Britain exemplifies the i n t e r t w i n i n g o f politics and housing characteristic o f i n -
dustrialized countries w i t h a v i b r a n t past o f labor and social r e f o r m movements.^
The public or social housing policies o f governments materialized their o f t e n cen-
sorious concerns f o r the well-being o f their citizens, making domestic space a locus
of p r i m a l political r e f o r m (Swenarton 1981). F r o m this perspective the nation's well-
being and future depended on prevailing domestic standards i n raising its f u t u r e cit-
izens and i n organizing the household, the state's microcosm (Crow 1989).
I n chapter 6, "Bringing M o d e r n i t y Home: Open Plan i n the British Domestic I n -
terior," Judy Attfield, a British design historian, analyzes the postwar housing politics
6. It is worth comparing Dolan's British ideological interpretation of recent home owner-
ship (chapter 5) with Rakoff's (1977) American ideological interpretation. Rakoff exemplifies
the American psychological research tradition by showing how the ideological contradictions
are mirrored in the psyche of American homeowners (see also Cohn 1979).
7. The housing situation in the Soviet Union was a supreme example of the relationship be-
tween politics and housing (Boym 1994).
Irene Cieraad
o f i m p l e m e n t i n g social r e f o r m by the i n t r o d u c t i o n o f "open plan" i n urban and do-
mestic architecture. N e w towns m a i n l y consisting o f f a m i l y houses were b u i h to
house working-class families f r o m dilapidated inner-city areas. The open-plan living
r o o m reflected first and foremost its designers' interpretation o f a new and m o d e r n
way o f life i n w h i c h social borders and hierarchies were denied. This interpretation
w o u l d soon clash w i t h the inhabitants' hiterpretation o f their new residential envi-
r o n m e n t and open-living arrangement.
I n this so-called failure o f m o d e r n i t y debate, A t t f i e l d takes sides w i t h the " m u t e d "
inhabitants by letting t h e m speak f o r themselves. The inhabitants' alterations o f t h e
open plan i n t o t w o separate rooms—the designers' p r o o f o f their failed intentions—
or the inhabhants' old-fashioned style and arrangement o f f u r n i t u r e , so despised b y
designers, are different b u t legitimate interpretations o f modernity, accordhig to A t t -
field. She catches the power o f individual consumers i n the w o r d "appropriation," a
concept coined by the B r k i s h anthropologist Daniel M i l l e r (1990) i n opposition t o
the powerless, mass-related concept o f "alienation" i n traditional Marxist rhetoric.
These opposing concepts are central to chapter 7, "The French T w o - H o m e Proj-
ect: M a t e r i a l i z a t i o n o f Family Identity," w r i t t e n by Sophie Chevalier, a French an-
thropologist. She personifies the recent Anglo-Gallic m i x o f Miller's interpretation
o f material cuhure w i t h a solid background i n French ethnology. This m i x resuhs
i n a comparison o f property attitudes o f " m u t e d " consumers, so-called alienated u r -
banites living i n tower blocks i n a Parisian suburb, w i t h property attitudes w i t h i n the
traditional M a o r i society o f N e w Zealand. By describing and analyzing the atthudes
of the mainly worldng-class residents, n o t only toward their flats' interior decoration
b u t also t o w a r d their t w o - h o m e projects—having a second f a m i l y residence i n the
country—Chevalier iUustrates striking similarhies i n the way meaningfial universes
are constructed by m o d e r n consumers and t r i b a l people alrlce.8 Most o f all, she dis-
credits the tacit o p m i o n among symbolic-oriented anthropologists that Western peo-
ple have lost their symbolic drive and are forced t o live i n an alienated, disenchanted
world.
Interviews w i t h residents and notably their discourses o n interior decoration d i -
rect our attention to the narrated dimension i n the construction o f meaning. D i s -
courses are also practices—narrative practices—in w h i c h meanings are constructed,
reaffirmed, activated, and reactivated over and again. However, the recorded mean-
ings o f objects may diff'er f r o m the meanings enacted i n dealings w i t h objects. Since
actual behavior has more credits than discourse i n the t r a d h i o n a l anthropological
paradigm, there is a hierarchy o f trustworthiness involved. This hierarchy at pres-
8. Olson's (1985) research on communication and artifacts, and especially the expression of
family relations m objects, confirms Chevalier's findings for the United States.
Antltropology at Home
ent may be contested, f o r i t was once created to support the scientific claims o f the
new ethnographic m e t h o d o f participant observation i n tribal societies. Participant
observation o f t r i b a l life and dealings had to compensate f o r the anthropologists'
poor c o m m a n d o f the language o f the societies involved.
Semantics is the subject o f chapter 8, "Home: The Experience o f Atmosphere." I t
is w r i t t e n by Paul Pennartz, a D u t c h environmental sociologist dedicated to the
American t r a d i t i o n o f environmental psychology. By carefully scrutinizing the resi-
dents' answers to such questions as " W h e n and where do y o u t h i n k i t is most pleas-
ant i n the house?" he reveals i m p o r t a n t consistencies i n their experiences o f
pleasantness i n the home. A l t h o u g h spatial characteristics o f the home environment
may contribute, they are not as decisive as sociopsychological elements.
This chapter o n atmosphere i n the home c o n f i r m s the emotionalization o f do-
mestic space and conspires t o support the m y t h o f t w o worlds apart, the public and
the private—worlds that since the nineteenth century have been divided along emo-
tional, moral, and economic lines; sculptured to opposing design patterns; and most
fi-equently referred to as " w o r k " and "home" (Cieraad 1991a; Nippert-Eng 1996). One
o f the most crucial consistencies i n the experiences o f the residents was their refer-
ence to home as a place to relax f r o m w o r k , thus c o n f i r m i n g the l i m i n a l professional
category o f housewives whose w o r k is i n the home.
Chapter 9, "Negotiating Space i n the Family Home," w r i t t e n by the British soci-
ologists M o i r a M u n r o and Ruth Madigan, deals w i t h another aspect o f housewives'
l i m i n a l position. The same m y t h o f t w o worlds apart endowed the private space o f
the home w i t h its exclusive aura o f privacy. Privacy came to be synonymous w i t h the
home and its inhabitants—the f a m i l y — a n d this self-evidential l i n k i n h i b i t e d c r i t i -
cal questions such as "Whose privacy is warranted i n the home?" I n retrospect, p r i -
vacy was a supreme home c o n d i t i o n to be created by the then-bourgeois housewives
to help their husbands recuperate f r o m work. This patriarchal c o n d i t i o n became i n -
grained i n the hierarchical organization o f domestic space, separating males f r o m fe-
males, j u n i o r f a m i l y members f r o m senior members, and domestic i n f e r i o r s f r o m
their superiors. By assigning every r o o m its o w n f u n c t i o n , an o p t i m u m a m o u n t o f
privacy was warranted f o r the head o f the household (Spain 1992,111-40). Even the
very confined domestic spaces o f the lower classes were hierarchically organized.
Nowadays, especially for those forced to live i n cramped houses, privacy is an issue
f o r negotiation between f a m i l y members. M u n r o and M a d i g a n illustrate the l i m i -
nal position o f today's housewives when privacy is concerned. A l t h o u g h housewives
do n o t claim a r o o m o f their o w n , they have created their o w n privacy conditions
i n an effective combination o f space and time zoning. However, not only is the p r i -
vate space o f the m o d e r n home o f t e n effectively zoned f o r space and t i m e , b u t the
public space is also zoned i n this way. The nineteenth-century split between public
 Anthropology at Home
Irene Cieraad

traditional patterns. This market policy seems to be responsible f o r the t r a d i t i o n a l

and private space was foremost a split enacted i n gender behavior (McDowell 1983a).
outlook o f Britain's postwar private housing stock, although i t does not explain the
The rules o f decency allowed upper-class w o m e n and children to be i n public by day,
s t r ü d n g national differences, f o r example, between European countries i n the most
n o t by night, and o n l y i n restricted, "safe," and "clean" terrhories.
popular types o f private house.'" I t illustrates that, even w h e n decisions are made
The late nineteenth-century discovery o f bacteria and other germs reinforced the
w i t h i n the same economic constraints, the outcome is Iflcely to be more culturally
dangerous image o f public space by "infecting" these places w i t h permanent i m p u -
than economically determined.
r i t y and fear o f contamination. This very n o t i o n o f pubHc i m p u r i t y was a m a j o r i m -
Shove, however, does distinguish between two patterns o f choice relating to dif-
petus i n "The Domestication o f Laundering," the topic o f chapter 10, w r i t t e n by Rudi
ferent market sections o f customers—the "better-" and the "worse-off" sections—
Laermans and Carine Meulders, two Belgian sociologists. The "outdoor" history o f
who describe their respective choices i n emotional or pragmatic terms. This contrast
domestic laundering describes a spatial shift contrary to most household practices.
mirrors class-related taste patterns as described by the French sociologist Bourdieu
Tradhionally, washing was a c o m m u n a l affair i n w h i c h w o m e n gathered around v i l -
(1984). British pragmatism, unlike its French counterpart, seems to be strongly i n -
lage washing places or i n urban washhouses. Later, i n reaction to the contamination
fluenced by a design ideal o f the postwar domestic r e f o r m movement i n w h i c h
of public places, all "hygienic" practices f r o m washing to bathing had to be performed
decor's constituting elements needed to match, especially w i t h relation to color and
i n the home. The domestic space was proclaimed to be the only safe and clean envi-
material.
ronment, guaranteed by the new professional reputation o f housewives as "germ
Domestic r e f o r m movements, Iflce "ideal homes" i n Britain, were upper-class i n i -
busters."
tiatives most dominant i n the postwar period (Morley 1990)." Their aU-modern de-
Laermans and Meulders are influenced by the works o f the late N o r b e r t Elias o n
sign programs were directed at t r a d i t i o n a l , and o f t e n working-class, predflections
the history o f European civilization.' Shifting boundaries, n o t only spatial, but also
o f massive reproduction f u r n i t u r e , clashing patterns, and n o n f u n c t i o n a l items and
social and emotional ones, are crucial elements i n Elias's interpretation o f Europe's
layout o f the furniture. Traditional predilections were described by the r e f o r m move-
history o f civilization and state f o r m a t i o n ([1939] 1978, [i939] 1982). The civic code
ments as "emotional," i n contrast to the rational and f u n c t i o n a l design the move-
of, for instance, unmaculate white collars—once the courtier's distinction—dispersed
ments favored. Ironically, the present taste o f the "better-off" section does not stress
to ever-widening social circles, u r g i n g ever more frequent washing o f linen. The dis-
matching combinations or f u n c t i o n a l design and layout, but stresses a unique and
persing o f c o u r ü y civilization was counterbalanced by centralizing forces i n Europe's
"daring" combination o f heterogeneous f u r n i t u r e elements all favored f o r their au-
state f o r m a t i o n , t y i n g local communities to central bureaucracies. By taking Elias's
thentic individual merits. The emotional aesthetics o f postmodern eclecticism sim-
p o i n t o f view the authors implicitly discredh the cherished m y t h o f two worlds apart,
ply overruled the rational and pragmatic aesthetics o f the univocal m o d e r n scheme.
as is exemplified by the subterranean centralizing force o f the technical infrastruc-
This development fllustrates i n m y o p i n i o n a remarkable change i n the discourse o f
ture connecting individual households to the state's public facühies.
"legitimate" taste—from rational to emotional—half a century after the most i n f l u -
Chapter 11, "Constructing H o m e : A Crossroads o f Choices," w r i t t e n by B r h i s h
ential domestic r e f o r m movements.
housing sociologist Elizabeth Shove, is another example o f crosscutting the t w o
worlds. T h o u g h f r o m a different theoretical perspective. Shove illustrates the inter-
twinement o f choices o f providers and consumers. The two separate worlds o f eco- 10. The bungalow is one of the very few examples of house types that are globally favored
(King 1984).
nomics meet i n a j o i n t construction project caUed "home." Providers o f houses and
11. The Swedish reform movement was called More Beautiful Everyday Living (Löfgren
furniture seem to determine what customers can buy, but they leghimize then choices
1993b), and the Dutch was called Good Living (Van Moorsel 1992). Cohen (1984) describes the
by referrhig to their market loiowledge o f what customers want or, more accurately, early domestic reform attempts targeting the American working-class interior. Zeldenrust-
their knowledge o f what sold before. However, as i t is far more d i f f i c u l t f o r house Noordanus (1956) comes forward with a psychological explanation for the dislüce of modern
builders than f o r f u r n h u r e retailers to k n o w their target group, house builders avoid design among the lower classes: The fragility and openness of modern furniture conflicts with
the financial risks involved i n experimenting w i t h new designs and t u r n to the proven their psychological need for security expressed in massive bullcy furniture and a need for the
comfortable enclosure of an easy chair. These needs stem from their precarious occupational
position, according to Zeldenrust. Greenhalgh (1990) gives an overview of modern design
9. Historic approaches also f r o m a neo-Marxist perspective flourished in postwar conti- movements in Europe and North America.
nental European sociology.
Irene Cieraad
Women's superior knowledge o f taste and color, once propagated i n nineteenth-
century advice books o n home management f o r bourgeois w o m e n , also proves to
be an established fact w i t h i n these pragmatic, "worse-off" circles. This model o f gen-
dered expertise, n o w t e r m e d "conventional," contrasts w i t h the advocated m o d e l
o f m u t u a l respect o f the partner's preferences i n the "better-off" category, accord-
ing to Shove. 12 I t illustrates n o t only the l o n g - t e r m effects o f nineteenth-century
home-advice books, b u t also a gender shift i n "legitimate" h o m e m a k i n g responsi-
bilhies, a century after the home-advice books made homemaking into a supremely
female task.
This century's transformations i n domestic architecture and domestic living are
the subject o f chapter 12, "'Postmodern' Home Life," written by T i m Putnam, a Brhish
historian o f material culture. He describes h o w the m o d e r n house constructed ac-
cording to f u n c t i o n a l principles became a technical terminal tied to a vast network
of sewers, mains, cables, and lines. Despite the m y t h o f two worlds apart, home life
and life chances came to depend more and more o n public systems, including those
o f education and occupation. However, the resistance to the very idea o f intertwine-
ment grew stronger too, as is witnessed i n the denial o f "public" destinies o f class and
gender, and i n the glorification o f individual choice.
The m o d e r n t r e n d toward personalizing may have been stimulated, i f n o t
broached, by "public" powers i n the guise o f education, media, marketing, or p o l i -
tics, b u t the home has become its p r i m e locus o f expression. I t is self-evident that
chUdren need rooms o f their o w n , just as i t is c o m m o n l y approved that adolescents
want to have a place o f their o w n before settiing d o w n (Cieraad 1994,1995). However,
setting up a shared household means more than m u t u a l t u n i n g o f i n d i v i d u a l p r o j -
ects i n an ongoing process o f negotiation, as illustrated by Putnam.
The home's aura o f sharing and c o m m u n a l i t y is likely to conflict w i t h individual
projects o f household members. Technical systems i n the home, lilce television sets
and telephones, stimulate individual use, but their use is also the topic o f many heated
family debates. The electronics industry has responded to these domestic conflicts by
p r o m o t i n g more i n d i v i d u a l devices and headphones and by integrating a m u t i n g
switch into their designs.
As negotiations, according to Putnam, have become the supreme characteristics
of postmodern democratic f a m ü y life, the t f l t i n g g r o u n d has shifted f r o m the master
bedroom to the postmodern living Idtchen. The new focus o f famUy life, being at once
a newly acquired zone o f personalization i n design and a celebration court o f shar-
12. A high degree of personahzation in Shove's "better-off" section corresponds to the find-
ings of Italian research on living room styles in relation to occupational status and income
(Amaturo et al. 1987).
Antiiropology at Home
ing, exemplifies the contradictions o f "postmodern" home life. Functional Idtchen
design, once hafled f o r its modernity, is n o w considered impersonal and outdated,
needing a more personal, romantic, or even a more glamorous touch. I n n o t only
bringing f a m f l y members together f o r the sharing o f a meal, b u t also revealing plain
domestic labor, the postmodern Idtchen has become the battleground o f domestic
responsibilities.
People seem to live a home life f u f l o f fllusions, contradictions, and m y t h s . ' ' Per-
sonalization n o t only impinges on the f a m i l y fllusion o f sharing, but it also disguises
shared lifestyles. The democratic family ideal o f negotiation may be a cover-up o f tra-
ditional gender roles, i n the same way that the augmentative gender differences be-
tween boys' and girls' decors seem to contradict the professed equal rights o f the sexes
(Cieraad 1995).
Even though the "cocooning" trend is waning, the home is stül the focal p o i n t o f
most people's lives. Research data indicate that youngsters dream of becoming home-
owners (Cieraad 1994). However, despite the emotional and huge financial invest-
ments i n the home, there has never been a p e r i o d i n Western urban history w h e n
people spent so f e w hours at home. The u r b a n and suburban quarters w i t h pre-
dominantly dual-income households are often deserted d u r i n g the day.
Stifl we cling so m u c h to the illusion o f two worlds apart that maintaining i t seems
to warrant large investments. Perhaps, because having a home and a job is n o t as cer-
tain as it was f o r t y years ago, losing b o t h has become a "postmodern" nightmare, rep-
resented by g r o w i n g numbers o f homeless people i n the streets. H o m e as the
emotionalization o f domestic space is more than ever a core symbol i n Western cul-
ture, one that derives its meaning n o t only f r o m its opposite, the public space, b u t
also f r o m the practices performed on i t and i n it (Saunders and W ü l i a m s 1988). These
practices may be related to its material structure, like decorating, renovating, and
m o v i n g house, or to domestic activities like cooking, cleaning, raising chfldren, or
gardening, or to the psychological and narrated practices o f remembering and
dreaming. The home images and house dreams o f the homeless fllustrate more than
anything else the fllusions and myths we cherish (Moore 1994).
The contributions to this book are univocal i n their claim on the meaning and i m -
portance o f the home i n the West. I t is n o t by chance that most o f the research, al-
13. Contradiction is the proper representation of modernity, according to MUler, linldng his
account to Schama's description of seventeenth-century Holland: "The core dilemma of
modernity lies in the consequences of the new temporality: that is, a distinct sense of pres-
ent, future and past, which leads to an increasing concern with the loiowledge of self-con-
struction of the criteria by which we live. Schama certainly echoes these concerns in
seventeenth-century Amsterdam, a people constantly alert to the fragility of their fortune"
(i994> 79)-
 Irene Cieraad

t h o u g h f r o m d i f f e r e n t perspectives, focuses o n the transition or the relationship

between the domestic and the pubhc space, that being the crucial split i n Western cul-
ture. The topics range f r o m the f i x i n g o f the borders o f domestic space to interpre-
tations o f attitudes t o w a r d the w i n d o w , t o w a r d facade decorations, and t o w a r d
visitors entering and leaving the house. These topics deal not only w i t h spatial trans-
gression o f domestic activities and the m i x i n g o f economic spheres, but also w i t h the
Domesticity in Dispute
home's separate spatial identities. A Reconsideration of Sources
This volume o n the topic o f domestic space brings together research traditions
that have never been mingled before: art history, social history, women's studies, de-
sign history, architectural history, cultural anthropology, ethnology, sociology, hous- Heidi de Mare
ing sociology, environmental psychology, material culture studies, and consumer
studies. H a v i n g made the anthropological approach and its search f o r meaning
exemplary, I hope to push the development o f a new and broaching research tradi-
that examines the way people lived in the past depicts the seventeenth-
t i o n : an anthropology o f domestic space. I t w d l be a native research paradise illus-
trating the exotic i n the familiar. L ITERATURE

f century D u t c h i n t e r i o r as the cradle o f domesticity. The architect W i t o l d

Rybczynski i n his book Home: A Sfiort History of an Idea (1986) devotes a chapter to
seventeenth-century D u t c h bourgeois culture. I n his view the features characterizing
everyday life d u r i n g this p e r i o d are "famUy, intimacy, and a devotion to the home"
(1986, 75). The literary scholar M a r i o Praz remarks o n seventeenth-century D u t c h
interiors that "their sobriety is not w i t h o u t a sense o f ease and w a r m bourgeois i n -
timacy" (1994,102). Similarly the historian Simon Schama writes that "the D u t c h had
elaborated their domesticity so far that they were able to indulge the almost univer-
sal craving f o r gezelligheid (coziness or c o m f o r t ) w i t h o u t , as they supposed, incur-
ring the o d i u m o f l u x u r y " (1979,117).
The assertions made by these authors are often ihustrated i n paintings o f seven-
teenth-century D u t c h interiors. A n air o f domesticity pervades "an idyllic, peaceful
scene" by Emanuel de W i t t e or "the still atmosphere o f the r o o m " i n works b y Jo-
hannes Vermeer (Rybczynsld 1987,68,71). The paintings by Pieter de H o o c h o f light,
uncluttered rooms are a "celebration o f domesticity" and represent "middle-class
home life" (Sutton 1984, L I V ) . Even the chaotic group scenes i n untidy, overcrowded
rooms, as depicted by Jan Steen, are regarded as " w o n d e r f u l scenes o f domestic life"
(Rybczynski 1987, 67), or as an allusion to the "ideal ordering o f the f a m i l y home"
by t u r n i n g i t upside d o w n (Schama 1987,391). The popularity o f these "paintings o f
domestic subjects," as summed up recently by the art historian Wayne Franits, lies
i n "a peculiar charm and modesty as they provide a vision o f the centrality o f do-
mestic life i n a long-vanished, democratic society" (1993,1).
I t is striking i n this connection to note that "domesticity" is interpreted by most
authors as the expression o f something else. The paintings are said to p o r t r a y the
increasing emphasis o n privacy i n the middle-class family, resulting i n a clear d i -
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