The living space constitution

According to common sense, choices regarding style and furnishing merely result from the taste and aesthetic affinities of people. But the tastes in terms of planning are rather a reflection of their personal history: social and professional background, love and family history... They will build perceptions, ambitions and thus be reflected into different lifestyles. Those lessons come from our report on the building of living environments.

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TO SUM UP

Planning one’s living environment is at the crossroads of several social processes that constrain as much as they help individuals to formulate expectations. Choices and decisions of planning are inseparable from the dynamics of love and their norms, but also from the social trajectories of people. The living environment is thus at the heart of contradictory phenomenon and injunctions, to which individuals must conform and sometimes resist to simply live.

KEY INSIGHTS

According to common sense, choices regarding style and furnishing merely result from the taste and aesthetic affinities of people. But the tastes in terms of planning are rather a reflection of their personal history: social and professional background, love and family history... They will build perceptions, ambitions and thus be reflected into different lifestyles. Those lessons come from our report on the building of living environments.

«I think that if I had not moved in with my wife I would not have any [television] [...] basically, it's just shit because it takes up space [...] and it's not particularly aesthetic... A TV, even if you take one with an attractive design, it's ugly ... everything is ugly [...] you have a boil in your decoration, [...] it disfigures my environment»

INVESTIGATION METHOD

The field study was conducted through detailed observations and semi-directive interviews with a panel of fifteen people. This panel was constituted by contrasting profiles, with strong differences in terms of age and life cycle, level of income and wealth, marital status and area of residence.

Protocol

Literature review

15 semi-directive interviews

Observations at interviewee's home

AUHTOR OF THIS STUDY

Montagu Guillaume - Strategy & Anthropology

After a research cursus in Sociology & Political Anthropology at la Sorbonne, Guillaume started offering his knowledge in social sciences to companies. He joined unknowns to take care of research and studies.

Contact Montagu

Montagu Guillaume

""The approach of social sciences is based on the fact that people have reasons to do what they do. It's our role to understand and explain their practices"."

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