Family and Household
Year: 2016
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: This chapter explores individual experiences of space by examining personal testimony. Hierarchies within trading households were often expressed in terms of access to different interior spaces. Though gender was a powerful organizational concept among those in trade, generational hierarchies seem more important in terms of the control of space. Variations between households were linked both to different understandings of the family, and to the physical constraints of the households concerned. Privacy does not seem to have been conceived in terms of personal space but it was clearly important in small business households in terms of upholding certain standards of respectability. Ensuring this sort of privacy meant that individuals had to abide by sets of unwritten rules about behaviour and conduct. Failure to do so, or the appearance of family battles over power and/or resources, could mean that the break-up of household relations, which also affected businesses.
Author: Hannah Barker
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W2565700105