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

Article
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.
Key Words domestic space, dynamic appropriations, family

negotiations, family relationships
Sabina Giorgi, Vincenzo Padiglione and

Clotilde Pontecorvo
University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, Italy
Appropriations: Dynamics of
Domestic Space Negotiations
in Italian Middle-Class
Working Families
Introduction: Home as a Fuzzy Object of Study

Recent literature on the concept of ‘home’ discussed from various
viewpoints highlights its ‘multidimensional’ nature (Mallett, 2004). It
is a place, a space, a set of feelings, customs, meanings, experiences or
representations. Several studies have examined various aspects of this
concept, its meanings for individuals (Sixsmith, 1986) and the ways
these meanings are constructed (Wiesenfeld, 1997). Some authors have
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Culture & Psychology 13(2)
delved into the connection between home and family (Allan & Crow,
1989); home and gender, especially with regard to femininity
(Mazumdar & Mazumdar, 1999; Madigan, Munro, & Smith, 1990); and
the home as a symbol of self and a reflection of identity. Cultural
studies has contributed to the understanding of home in the context of
migration and diaspora experiences (Ahmed, 1999; Rapport &
Dawson, 1998).
The heterogeneity and variety of the recent literature on ‘home’ and
‘house’ shows that domestic spaces are never neutral; indeed they offer
a representation of those who live there and their collective and
personal symbolizations.
The house is a depository of stories constructed through a strong
weaving of the biographies of its inhabitants; it is made of joint and
personal customs, conflicts and negotiations often related to the
definition of indoor spaces by family members.
The processes that lead to a definition of space are therefore
complex and the categories that define it are numerous: individual,
collective, public, private, and so on. Behind each possible category
there are different principles of classification. There is, in the first
place, a dimension of ‘being able’ to act and to transform a space that
implies a certain freedom of action and a decisional autonomy. There
is also a fundamental dichotomy between public and private spheres,
which are mainly constructed through the concept of ‘visibility’. A
private place appears as such only because some family members
choose it and inhabit it, whereas a public space might as well belong,
by the very nature of its definition, to people who do not belong to
the family unit.
However, the normative intent of these categorizations often appears
inappropriate to describe existing family dynamics. Private and public
worlds co-exist and reach across individual and collective spheres,
thereby creating hybrid areas that escape immediate definition: indi-
vidual and collective spaces can interchangeably be public or private.
The home, being an anthropological place par excellence and subject-
ing its residents to continuous symbolizations, represents a very broad
research context: a network of stratified and shared meanings (Geertz,
1973). As a result, the existing categorizations often prove to be unstable
as one struggles to define the representations and practices within
limited boundaries. Domestic spaces, from an anthropological point of
view, have an inscribed and symbolized sense (Augé, 1995) and, at the
same time, are ‘active and mobile’, constantly changing in time.
In spite of all these difficulties, the analysis of domestic space is
meaningful because spaces gain meaning through the acts of their
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Giorgi et al. Appropriations
residents. This analysis allows us to understand cultural and in-

dividual courses that have endowed this field with meaning. The
following study moves from domestic spaces to the social field, from
the most visible and recognized signs of social orders to invisible ones,
assuming that an anthropological place is both a concept of sense for
those who live in it and a concept of intelligibility for those who
observe it (Augé, 1995).
Appropriation Spaces versus Place Ownership

We had initially decided to approach the study of home through the
concept of ‘space ownership’, in the sense of the ‘exclusive rights’ that
some family members have to various areas of the house. In particu-
lar, we were interested in the co-existence of common and ‘individual’
or ‘personal’ spaces within a house. Which representations and
customs lead to the definition of a particular place (and not others) as
the ‘property’ of a particular family member? How do these ‘appropri-
ations’ translate in terms of affective investments (place attachment),
the possibility of control, acting within and relating to a place? How
does one become entitled to this ownership within a family?
All these questions soon revealed the inadequacy of the concept of
‘ownership’ that was first adopted. In fact, they imply a steadiness that
cannot be applied to changing family roles and dynamics of appropri-
ation. Negotiations, mediations and changes of ‘ownership’ are not
included in the very meaning of this word, which, through the legal
and normative nature of its origin, stabilizes a process of space appro-
priation that is rather dynamic and unstable. Semantically, the term
‘appropriation’ and the verb ‘to take possession of’ imply the idea of a
movement, of an unclear itinerary from the dynamics of using a space
towards its more or less temporary ownership.
This concept also has important connections with Bachelard’s
European analysis on the question of space (1957) and with other
studies based on these theoretical premises. The study by Korosec-
Serfaty (1985) re-construes the use of the concept of appropriation from
a historical point of view, from its origins in Marxist thought to its
widest diffusion in psychology and in French urban sociology in the
1960s and 1970s (Lefebvre, 1968, quoted in Korosec-Serfaty, 1985).
According to Korosec-Serfaty, the appropriation concerns the
meanings that are contained in the spaces and in the house, and the
relationships that are established therein. The appropriation of the
domestic space, therefore, cannot be examined by reference to what is
observable; it is necessary to know the interpretations constructed by
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each family member, which are dependent on his or her own

experience of inhabiting.
Other authors have been interested, in a more or less direct way, in
the concept of ‘appropriation’ within the house, and focus on different
nuances. Sophie Chevalier (1999) uses it in order to survey the
processes of construction and representation of family identity and
mass material culture. In particular, ‘appropriation’ is understood as
the way in which ‘consumers personalize objects of mass production,
by integrating them into their way of life’ (Chevalier, 1999, pp. 86–87).
Focusing attention on a particular common space of the house, the
lounge, Chevalier’s ethnographic analysis aims to reveal how the orna-
ments applied to the said room—in families from a residential borough
of Paris-Nanterre—correspond to particular processes of meaning
attribution that invest the objects of the mass market (such as: basic
furniture, television sets, decorative objects) by transforming them into
privileged witnesses of the family’s life story.
Munro and Madigan (1999) develop a theme that is strictly related to
that of ‘appropriations’: ‘the negotiation of the space within the family
house’. In particular the authors aim to study how tensions between
parents and children which take place on the main communal spaces of
the house (e.g. the living room) are managed and solved. To this aim,
postal questionnaires and interviews were addressed to the female
members of a large group of working-class and lower-middle-class
families living in the Glasgow area. The authors’ analysis revolves
around a concept we found extremely useful, namely that of ‘time
zoned space’ (Munro & Madigan, 1999, p. 113). It is related to obser-
vations focusing on the temporal management of the living room—a
collective home space—by family members according to their needs
and other factors (children’s age, the presence of guests, the gender of
the family members, etc.).
An examination of the literature from a psycho-cultural perspective
makes it legitimate to presuppose two different but converging
semantic horizons concerning the notion of appropriation.
In the first horizon, space is constructed symbolically through a
cultural perspective that saturates the surrounding world (Lévi-Strauss,
1955; Remotti, 1993) and the temporal flux (Merlino & Padiglione, 1993;
Munn, 1992) with meaning. Bourdieu’s study of the Kabyle house
(1969) stands as one of the main contributions to the topic. In his essay,
Bourdieu offers a masterly structuralist analysis in which ‘homologous
binary oppositions’ (light/dark, east/west, high/low, day/night,
nature/nurture, etc.) revolve around the cardinal dichotomy expressed
by the household, namely that of masculine/feminine. Our only
150

cautious reservation is that Bourdieu does not offer an account of the

manner in which the said oppositions are construed and instituted;
most importantly, he treats symbolic systems as being fixed, so that,
although they do, ‘in practice’, regenerate themselves, their trans-
formative and inventive nature is neglected.
Even though more recent categories such as that of a ‘non-place’
(proposed by Augé, 1995) have been successful, it is in fact paradoxical,
both from a philosophical and an anthropological point of view, to
conceive of non-meaningful spaces; it seems to be the case, rather, that
milieus only exist in so far as they have different articulations and
symbolic intensities. In this case the concept of ‘appropriation’ is
developed within the notion of symbolic space: by emphasizing the
process, it underlines the natural instability of any system of meaning.
The second perspective—within which we think we may include the
work of Korosec-Serfaty, Chevalier and Munro and Madigan—insists
on the very process of making the ‘home’ a place to be recognized in
everyday life. It finds its heuristic legitimization in a constructionist
interpretation that captures the unstable character of the social
phenomena, imaging the need for a constantly renovated network of
meanings that is produced by variable institutional and intersubjective
relationships. Along similar lines, the interpretive anthropology of
Geertz (1973) and Turner (1975) pushes towards the meaning of the
symbolic, understood no longer as a system of shared and intertwined
meanings but as a process, that is, a continuous, in progress, con-
struction of meanings where the competences of the actors meet the
dynamics of the relationships, by grounding and interpreting the
contexts (Padiglione, 1996, pp. 62–69).
This second semantic perspective underlines the processes which
confirm, deny, re-negotiate, re-create the cultural reality in the micro-
dimensions of inter-subjective relationships: the symbolic assets that
are implied and presupposed, and that allow the spatial actions of the
social actors according to more or less shared intentionalities and
strategies.
The present study presupposes the existence of the first level and is
aimed at giving an account of the appropriation dynamics in a family
context as they are explicit at the second level. It seeks to investigate,
through the ethnographic study of eight Italian families, the ways in
which family members draw the boundaries between house spaces,
and appropriate and personalize them.
Personalizations, conflicts and negotiations, self-attributions, self-
representations and practices, therefore, are the main concern of the
present study.
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‘Close’ Concepts: Territoriality

Among the theories presented in the existing literature, the closest
notion to what we refer to as ‘appropriation’ is that of ‘territoriality’.
Even though this concept is often used in the field of environmental
psychology, its socio-biological origins should not be forgotten. It is on
account of this origin that the study of ‘human territoriality’ still shows
traces of its evolutionist heritage, which places humans within a linear
and progressive process wherein some forms of human behaviour can
be traced back to their ethological and naturalistic roots. This assimi-
lation is especially evident through such notions as occupation, demar-
cation and defence of a space. According to Barbara Brown (1987), it is
clear that a strict biological interpretation of territoriality can be useful
in some senses but it is clearly inadequate in other cases.
The social approach of environmental psychology tends to place the
notion of territoriality within the processes of the regulation of social
interactions and identity construction, thereby integrating the bio-
logical perspective into a standpoint that emphasizes the symbolic,
affective and cognitive aspects of territories, places and their definition
(Brown, 1987; Giuliani, 2004).
The emphasis, therefore, is on the dimension of the attachment
to place which results from a particular symbolic investment of its
residents.
As a result of this ‘integration’ of perspectives, there is a gradual shift
from a research that was strongly influenced by a biological approach
and which emphasizes physical demarcation (markers) of territories
and defensive behaviours towards a research that highlights psycho-
logical, social and cultural aspects of territories. The second approach
examines the role that territoriality plays in the identity construction
processes and it is aimed at the recognition of the functions of attach-
ment, affective and cognitive investments and the symbolic value of
place personalization (Brown, 1987).
A theoretically and empirically successful paradigm that might be
inserted in this broad research context is Altman’s (1975) model of
human territoriality, where the author identifies three types of terri-
tories pertaining to the relation between two main characteristics of
spaces: the ‘psychological centrality’ that a space has for its residents
and the ‘occupational duration’ of space itself.
The authors who followed Altman’s model pointed out that terri-
tories should not be examined only through their physical dimension
and space defensive behaviours, but also through the processes of
space ‘personalizations’ that attach spaces to individual or group
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identities. Some studies have concentrated on the examination of terri-

toriality in external house settings. The personalization of these
external places has been interpreted as an index of an ‘identity display’
(Harris & Brown, 1996) and in terms of cohesion and a sense of
community in relation to neighbours (Brown & Werner, 1985).
We would like to conclude this overview by emphasizing that this
shift from the idea of space ‘defence’ to the concept of ‘attachment’—
not forgetting the ethological origins of the notion—recognized
throughout the theoretical discussions on the concept of territoriality
still does not allow us to effectively transcend the biological approach,
but it does favour peaceful co-existence with it and some specific
combination. The ambiguity lies in the very notions of territory and
territoriality widely used by those who continue to empirically
examine this field. The idea of permanently substituting the fluid
concept of ‘appropriation’ for the static qualities commonly associated
with ‘territoriality’ will help emphasize the relational dynamics
existing in a place defined as ‘one’s own’ by its social actors.
The emphasis on the identity dimension of territoriality and the
transformation of a strict idea of territory into an affective one repre-
sents one of the recent and possible ways of discussing both places and
practices or representations that characterize them.
Data Corpus
The corpus of our data has been gathered by the Italian CELF research
group, sponsored by the Sloan Foundation. This is an ethnographic
research project that examines carefully, in the course of one week, the
everyday lives of eight middle-class Italian working families in Rome.
The research implies observing (and video-recording) the family
members at home during their working and weekend days, and inter-
viewing the parents about the family history, habits and network of
relationships and children’s education. The families are all composed of
two parents and at least two siblings, one of whom is between 8 and 11
years of age; both parents work outside the home for at least 30 hours
per week. The families were recruited through the mediation of two
teachers from middle-junior school who acted for us as ‘guarantee’ of
the reliability of the research. It is interesting to mention that the eldest
children from three of the families were at the time attending the same
school although they were not living in the same neighbourhood.
The general aim of the project is to understand and analyse how the
family organizes itself in carrying out manifold activities linked to
work and family (Arcidiacono & Pontecorvo, 2004). The specific aim of
153

this article is to interpret how the domestic space is negotiated, person-

alized and self-attributed by family members.
One of the main interests behind the structuring of the various
research phases was the study of family house spaces explored in their
different dimensions.
The first dimension concerns the ‘physical attributes’ of houses (such
as width, structure, geographical position, furniture, obstacles), which
were measured through house mapping and detailed digital pho-
tography. It will be useful to provide at least some general notion of
the physical features of our families’ dwelling places. All of the eight
families live in flats (condominiums), as is usual in Rome, which range
in size between 55 and 120 square meters. They all have a living room,
a kitchen and two bedrooms, one for the parents and one for the two
children. The only variation in this common structure is that rooms can
be smaller or larger; six of the families have two bathrooms; one family
also has a small space, almost a closet, used as an office. It is also
interesting to note that in most cases interior organization of the house
and the use of different rooms has been modified in the course of the
family’s history to correspond to the new needs of the family (i.e. birth
and growth of the two children).
The second dimension concerns the ‘actors’ interpretations’ of their
home obtained through:
• Audio tours: audio-taped tours (in total eight of 50 minutes each) of

the houses by one member of the family—identified by the family
itself—during which he or she showed and described the home
environment. This initial presentation of the home was only carried
out during the first visit. It was a preliminary modality for the
researchers to get in touch with the family and its house, which
resembles the way in which both middle-class and lower-class
Italian families often welcome new acquaintances to the house. It is
a traditional expression of hospitality.
• Video tours: video-taped tours of domestic spaces carried out by each
family member without the presence of a researcher (thirty video
tours; also children older than 8 took part). The participants were
asked to videotape, from their own perspective, the most meaning-
ful objects and spaces in the house (as well as indicating whom they
belonged to). Thus we got different points of the house produced by
each family member.
• Individual interviews: interviews of the parents focusing on both
house and family history (year of construction, structural modifi-
cations, etc.).
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The ‘space practices’ within the domestic context were observed

through the visual ethnography (videotaping) of family customs.
All interactional data have been fully transcribed following the Gail
Jefferson coding system of conversational analysis (as presented in
Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974).
In this specific study our attention is addressed to the audio and
video tours in particular, that is, to the data which express the
interpretations that the different family members offer regarding their
domestic space. However, we also use some of the interactional data
that allow a dialectical comparison between interpretations and
observed practices.
It must be emphasized that our methods of data collection are part
of a general ethnographic approach in which data are not constructed
with traditional psychological tools, but they are ‘capta’ within the
context and negotiated into the relationships between researchers and
participants.
The analysis of the data allowed us to proceed with the description
of more or less ‘unstable’ forms of space ‘appropriations’.
At the Outside of the House: ‘Territorial’

Appropriations
This first interpretative category that we have chosen for the analysis
of discourses of spatial appropriation includes examples, which
recall—but in a provocative way— the concept of territoriality. The use
of this concept is rather ironic, and it grotesquely emphasizes a possible
assimilation between the human and animal concepts of territoriality.
Physical demarcation, conquest strategies, defence signs and
‘symbolic’ definitions of family identities constitute the essential core
of the presented excerpts.
However, it should be mentioned that one of the main fields of
social research on territoriality, that is, the relation towards spaces
outside the house (Harris & Brown, 1996), is restricted in this study.
Only with two out of eight families was it actually possible to find
relevant material revealing examples where the family members
address spaces outside the house (such as, in the first excerpt below,
about the terrace) as ‘liminal’ boundaries between the family and
others. One of the possible explanations seems to lie in the structural
features of urban Italian apartments, which mostly lack outdoor
extra spaces.
‘Territorial appropriations’ in this study refer to those actions that
are oriented towards the visual construction of ownership and the
155

definition of ‘territorial’ boundaries recognized as such, and link a

particular place to the definition of personal and family identity.
The ‘Conquest’ of the Condominium Terrace

In the Ripe family the father talks and ‘reveals’, during his video tour,
how he strategically obtained the goal of appropriating the condo-
minium terrace for himself (and his plants). The excerpt below shows
how the father discursively constructs himself as a skilful person who
is capable of bluffing, that is, of leading others to believe something
which is actually false without revealing its true communicative
character, unless the plan fails (Arielli & Scotto, 2003). ‘The bluff is a
deceit committed through an action’ (Arielli & Scotto, 2003, p. 51). At
the same time, however, the father preserves or repairs (in front of the
camera and the virtual public eye it embodies) his ‘moral character’ by
explaining how he was finally authorized to appropriate the terrace.
Excerpt 1: ‘I took possession of it’
Ripe family—Father’s video tour
Mother (MUM) (47 years old); Father (DAD) (56 years old); Leonardo (LE)
(13 years old); Andrea (AN) (10 years old)
DAD: dunque io inizierei:: il mio DAD: so I’d start:: my tour, (1.0)

tour, (1.0) partendo dal: from the: terrace ((he opens
terrazzo ((apre la porta del the door leading to the
terrazzo condominiale)) (1.0) condominium terrace)) (1.0)
che- non è il nostro= that- isn’t ours= our
dell’appartamento, ma è apartment’s, but it’s of joint
quello del condominio. (2.0) ownership. (2.0) let’s say
però diciamo c(h)e ho though t(h)at I act(h)ed
fat(h)to un’azione arbitraria arbitrarily I took possession
me ne sono impossessato of it asking for the
chiedendo un’autorizzazione authorization to put some
per mettere delle piante, (0.8) plants, (0.8) that was granted
che m’è stata concessa, to me, (1.0) so that, (2.0) there
(1.0) per cui, (2.0) ci sono are some dried plants now
delle piante secche che, (.) that, (.) that by now are to be
che ormai sono da buttare thrown away (among these)
(tra questi) poi ci sono degli then there are citrus fruits
agrumi limoni piccoli aranci, lemons little oranges,
mandarini, altre piante. (1.0) mandarins, other plants. (1.0)
eh: diciamo che (.) il terrazzo eh: let’s say (.) I really miss a
mi manca molto mi ma:nca la terrace, I mi:ss the outside
parte esterna part
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The Ripe family has been living in the present flat for the past six
years. The garden, the green space, ‘the external part’, is very import-
ant for Dad; it seems to represent the affective place of his childhood,
the link with his own family, many times recalled in our interactional
data through short, emotionally laden quotations. The attempt to
achieve an unsatisfied necessity, that is, to possess an ‘external part’ of
his own, fully corresponds to an image of an ideal family, shared by
both husband and wife and actualized in everyday life. This need is
even stronger inasmuch as the individual stories of the couple have
been difficult and complex. In these cases the house plays an import-
ant autonomous role. It has been designed and planned, according to
the conceptions of a cohesive collectivity that is, however, capable of
giving value to the needs of each family member. In their country
house, which is considered by Dad and Mum as the ‘buen retiro’, the
house of memories, of social life, ‘the space where truly we can give
free play to our way of being’ (Mum, audio tour), there is a large green
space that, in the narrative produced by Mum, appears as the mythical
place of the family, in which it is possible to discover essential parts of
the self that in everyday life cannot find any expression: ‘there is an
area of 5000 square metres; thus he can do the farming and I too, and
we can collect our own fruit’ (Mum, audio tour). The previous family
house in the city had a large garden, but the present flat lacks this ‘vital’
part. In this respect, we can better understand the emphasis Dad applies
to what he does not possess (and misses), the common terrace, meant as
an opening towards the outside. This space is also assigned a relevant
position as the father chose it to begin his personal video tour of the
home, and to be publicly recognized as part of his self-presentation.
All the way through, the two poles (ours/not ours) marked in the
beginning of the excerpt are reversed through a declaration of clever-
ness. The action of ‘taking possession of’, defined as arbitrary and
therefore recognized as abusive, irregular and questionable, is justified
by the father’s almost primary need—’I really need a terrace’—and is
hence inserted into a personal normative frame. The way plants, which
he carefully lists, are arranged creates a visual boundary. The occupied
space then becomes visible and communicative.
The flow of the testimony has alternate phases: the initial embar-
rassed pride (affirmation + laugh) is attenuated by appealing to a
reason that appears ambiguous: the need to grow plants. The value of
the act is thus twofold: embellishment (a value for everybody) and the
occupation of a space (a plus for the father’s specific family). It is,
however, manifest from visual evidence (dried plants to be thrown
away) that the father’s strategy is ineffective, that it lacks the social
157

legitimacy it purports to have: it remains exclusively as his personal

need.
It is worth noting how the act of transgression is finally even denied
and recomposed through the father’s final statement that he misses a
terrace, as if he recognizes that he never owned it. It seems that the
father’s representation of sadness and regret, actualized in the ‘here
and now’ of his words (‘I miss it a lot, I miss it’), allows the personal
legitimation of an appropriation and admits the rise of an extraordi-
narily ruled space.
From a discussion within our research group it was noted that the
affective and personal justification the Ripes’ father gives of his success-
ful underhand attempt to conquer the condominium terrace could be
considered within certain stereotypical representations of Italian
culture. The excerpt evokes the image of a sort of ‘Mediterranean hero’,
cunning, crafty for necessity and misfortune—and in this example also
‘sentimental’—utilized and made fun of within the Italian popular
context, often in the form of humorous stories (i.e. ‘There was an
Englishman, a Frenchman, a German, a Russian, a Chinaman and an
Italian. . .’) to represent ourselves in relation to the ‘Others’ in a stereo-
typical way that assumes the Italian point of view as central
(Padiglione, 1996). The role of accountability and of giving appropriate
justifications for any misbehaviour was found in previous research
about children’s moral socialization that provided empirical evidence
that Italian children are more frequently requested to justify themselves
during family dinner conversations than are North American children
(see Sterponi, 2000–2001).
‘Politically Correct’ Appropriations

Within the description by the same (Ripes’) father, and similar to the
‘conquest of the balcony’, another interpretative category of appro-
priations addresses an irregular use of public spaces obtained without
negotiating and justified by reasons which display a ‘politically correct’
character.
Excerpt 2: ‘Using the closet in order to be able to perform a separate col-
lection of household waste’
Ripe family—Father’s video tour
DAD: questa è: l’ingresso ((di fronte DAD: this is: the entrance ((in front
alla porta che permette of the door that allows the
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DAD: l’entrata, dall’esterno, DAD: entrance into the apartment

nell’appartamento)) (5.0) qui from the outside)) (5.0) here
abbiamo utilizzato uno we have used the
spazio condominiale ((si common space ((a closet
tratta di uno sportello that hosts two meters)) in
all’interno del quale sono order to be able=unu=that is
disposti due contatori)) per not used in order to be
poter=inuti=inutilizzato per able- to perform a separate
poter-fare una raccolta collection of household
differenziata minima, eh:: waste a minimal one, eh::
(3.0) vetro e:, plastica. la (3.0) glass and:, plastics.
carta, paper,
In this excerpt, the motivation chosen to account for the use of

small external public space is different. The separate collection of
household waste and its ‘civic value’ makes this ‘appropriation’
reasonable and does not require additional, strategic and ‘public’ forms
of authorization.
The father, though, stresses the ‘non-utilized’ character of the space,
a detail that casts the current action of appropriation as—in opposition
to the former—socially and politically meaningful: the space, in fact, is
neither wasted nor dismissed but, on the contrary, exploited for
‘politically correct’ aims.
The appropriation, in this case, seems to endow with meaning some-
thing that previously had no reason to exist.
Thresholds and ‘Demarcations’

Objects have social meanings and are necessary for making cultural categories
visible and stable. (Bartoletti, 2001, p. 142)
The third excerpt shifts the attention from territorial behaviours to
symbolic actions that are always oriented towards drawing boundaries
between the self and others, though this time through the communi-
cative instruments of the ‘decoded’ symbols that explicitly define a
particular identity.
Excerpt 3: ‘It is a Jewish house’
Olmi family—Mother’s video tour
Mother (MUM) (43 years old); Father (DAD) (43 years old); Fabrizio (FAB)
(11 years old); Davide (DA) (7 years old)
MUM: ecco, allora la mia visita MUM: well, my tour of the house
della casa comincia pure also starts from the outside,
dall’esterno, dalla mezuzà. from the mezuzah. the
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MUM: la mezuzà è un: simbolo MUM: mezuzah is a: Jewish

ebraico che si mette sullo symbol that you put on the
stipite, della porta di casa, door-jamb, the house front
e:: e l’abbiamo messo da door, and:: we put it
poco di fuori perché: prima outside not that long ago
questa casa, che era l’ufficio because:: before, this flat
di mio padre, aveva sì la was my father’s office, it
mezuzà ma dentro. era una did have mezuzah, though,
cosa un po’ più timida forse only inside. it was
un ebraismo più timido e something more timid
quest’anno, proprio pochi maybe a more timid
mesi fa invece, l’abbiamo Judaism and, on the
messa fuori dove deve stare contrary, this year, just few
sullo stipite della porta per months ago, we put it
indicare che è una casa outside where it should be
ebraica e questo è proprio on the door jamb to show
uno dei (.) precetti it is a Jewish house and
fondamentali di mettere this is one of (.) the main
questo rotolino di preghiere precepts to put this roll of
sulla porta: di casa prayers on the outside
door: of the house
The Olmi family is Jewish and its religious belonging is often

discussed by its members in relation to their everyday life, because
they decided to be a Jewish family even though the father comes from
a Catholic family. Their house has numerous objects that recall this
identity—e.g. the hanukiah (the traditional candlestick for the
Hanukah holiday) in the library, the Jewish calendar—that are used,
mainly by the mother, as part of her self- and family presentation with
regard to others (e.g. the researchers).
On the main entrance door-jamb (on the right side of the door), the
mezuzah (Cardona, 1981) communicates their belonging to a particu-
lar world of meanings which they share with a broader community
recognizing itself in that particular symbol. Interestingly, the symbol
the mother chooses to identify herself (and her family) stands, materi-
ally, at the threshold between the inside and the outside of the house,
the door-jamb marking straight away both belonging (to the inside and
the virtual community to which they are linked) and otherness (with
respect to the non- Jewish). Such ‘demarcation’ defines family identity
through the principle of cultural similarities or differences.
Also, the mother’s reference to a Jewishness that, for as long as the
mezuzah was not exposed on the front door, was timid, marks her
religious identity as different and more confident than her father’s
identity, in that she made it available for public recognition. In general
all the mother’s discourse in her video tour shows that she is speaking
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on behalf of the family, by establishing a strong link with her cultural

origins.
‘Taking Possession of ’ Places within the House

A Sort of ‘Identification’—Predominant Appropriations
The category we called ‘predominant’ appropriations comprises descrip-
tions in which participants personalize spaces in a way that denotes a
sort of ‘identification’ between the living space and the individual actor
(family member). The house, through its furniture, space arrangement
and aesthetic forms, becomes a reflection of the choices, ideology and
‘ways of being’ of a single person. The spaces of the house are dis-
cursively constructed as an expression of someone’s prevailing identity.
The Cali family’s father—who has been trained as a land surveyor
and aspired to become an architect—seems to describe and recognize
the entire house as an extension of his individual characteristics,
desires and tastes.
Excerpt 4: ‘For me it is something that belongs to me’
Cali Family—Father’s audio tour
Mother (MUM) (41 years old), Father (DAD) (44 years old), Carla (CA)
(8 years old), Elisa (EL) (3 years old)
DAD: diciamo che la cosa che DAD: let’s say that the thing that I
sento più mia in tutta casa è mostly feel as mine in all the
l’organizzazione degli spazi house is the organization of
quella la sento mia perché spaces. I feel it’s mine
mi sono messo a tavolino è because I sat at the table and
ho detto <come voglio> che I said <how I want> this
diventi questa casa così house to be and so wherever
quindi dove vado è lo spazio I go I feel that it belongs to
che sento che mi appartiene me (. . .) I feel the very
(. . .) sono proprio le structures, I feel they are
strutture che sento, che sento mine, (. . .) and so:: it is easy
mie, (. . .) quindi:: è facile per for me- I’m not saying I
me- non dico identificarsi mean to identify myself with
insomma ma in qualche it but somehow to spend
modo spendere più affetto:: more affection:: in
in qualche cosa che something that is normally
normalmente uno considera considered as stable, because
stabile, perché stabile è, ma stable is, I mean something
insomma altro da se, per me apart from oneself, on the
è invece qualcosa che mi contrary, for me it is
appartiene ↓ancora something that belongs to
↑abbastanza profondamente me ↓ still ↑deeply enough
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It is useful to mention that the Calis’ father personally supervised

the renovation of their flat in the year 1995, when the first daughter
was born, and the family has felt the necessity to fully reorganize the
existing space and its use. Moreover, Dad engaged himself in design-
ing some of the furniture, by establishing the sizes, the materials and
the distribution. The Calis’ father, as he introduces the house to the
researchers during the audio tour, expresses his strong attachment to
the domestic space. He talks about the whole space, not addressing any
particular places or objects, as something that profoundly belongs to
him. It is the space in itself that is described by him as his own, as a
global personalization that is expressed by the design of the table-
island in the kitchen or by the multifunctional desk in the living room.
The commitment he addresses in the words ‘how I want this house to
be’ (ex. 4) is associated with every structural component of the
domestic space.
Excerpt 5: ‘Mortified by the mess’
Cali family—Father’s audio tour
Mother (MUM) (41 years old), Father (DAD) (44 years old), Carla (CA)
(8 years old), Elisa (EL) (3 years old), Researcher (RES)
DAD: però per me lo spazio che DAD: for me though the space I
vivo è davvero la cosa che live in is the thing that I feel
più sento ( ) most ( )
RES: è il tuo oggetto d’affezione. RES: it is the object of your
affection.
DAD: è il mio oggetto d’affezione
diciamo così è quindi DAD: it is my object of affection
quando lo vedo mortificato let’s put it this way and so
dal casino when I see that it’s
mortified by the mess
(. . .)
(. . .)
DAD: me scoccia ↑ particolarmente
però ci devo vivere con sta DAD: I get ↑ particularly annoyed
gente che ci devo fa mo’ but I have to live with these
ammazzo tutti, non è people, what should I do, to
possibile. kill them all, it is not
possible.
RES: non è vero non è affatto
disordinato RES: it’s not true, it’s not in a
mess
DAD: te l’ho detto questo è costato
sangue sudore e lacrime DAD: I told you, it cost blood
sweat and tears
In excerpt 5 the father employs specific vocabulary in talking about

space (making it a sensitive agent) that has emotive connotations
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(‘mortified’), as if emotions would directly map from space onto

himself (in terms of anger and dissatisfaction) and vice versa. The
space seems to represent the father and, therefore, ‘it’s mortified’ and
he ‘get[s] particularly annoyed’ by the mess caused by the rest of his
family. The emphatic reference to ‘blood, sweat and tears’ as a personal
sacrifice to actualize his ideal of a good place for the cohabitation of
the family manifests his ambition to be recognized as an exclusive
authority over the house, and, given that the dynamics is not satis-
factory for him, it allows him to express self-commiseration.
It would be useful here to employ the notion of ‘abduction’,
proposed by Bateson (1980), to describe the quality of the relationships
between different systems, such as human beings and things, by means
of different isomorphisms and metaphors: ‘[It] is possible to describe
some event or thing . . . and then to look around the world for other
cases to fit the same rules that we devise for our description’ (Bateson,
1980, p. 157).
The Calis’ father seems to be interested in representing his personal
identity in the organization of the family space, and in the style it
acquires. In so doing he duplicates images of himself that he would
like to reflect his traits of coherence and fidelity. He looks for his
humours in the order and in the disorder of the domestic milieu,
establishing an oriented play of reflexes and of constantly possible
contacts between the external and internal world.
This back and forth movement seems to be present in other familiar
contexts with different performers (of either gender), but always with
the presupposition of linking this identification to the social con-
struction of a local authority.
Excerpt 6: ‘It reflects my character’
Cilo family—Mother’s video tour
Mother (MUM) (38 years old), Father (DAD) (39 years old), Samantha (SA)
(13 years old), Federica (FE) (11 years old)
MUM: queste bellissime tende che MUM: these wonderful curtains

vedete, (2.0) scelte da me, that you see, (2.0) were
(1.0) l’ho fatte fare io dalla chosen by me, (1.0) I made
sarta, (0.5) in base al::: mh: a dressmaker make them
al colore della mia camera for me (0.5) on the basis
da pranzo. (1.0) perché::: of::: mh: the colour of my
come vedete a me::: dining room. (1.0) because:::
piacciono molto le cose:: (.) as you see I::: really like
vitali insomma (.) things:: (.) that are vital I
luminose, perché mean (.) bright, because
rispecchiano un po’::: they reflect me a little:::
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MUM: anche il mio carattere=io MUM: also my character=I am a

sono una ragazza molto very cheerful person, full
allegra, molto vivace, e::: of life, and::: what to say
che dire
Excerpt 7: ‘You splutter it to me’

Cilo family—Interactional data (Wednesday morning)
Mother (MUM) (38 years old), Father (DAD) (39 years old), Samantha (SA)
(13 years old), Federica (FE) (11 years old)
MUM: ma perché (lo usi) come MUM: I’m sorry but why (do you
specchio scusami eh? ((si use it) as a mirror? ((talking
riferisce alla vetrina del about the glass-fronted
soggiorno)) cupboard of the living room))
DAD: perché so fe[mminuccie DAD: because they are young
gir[lies
MUM: [ma no=no::
[no no MUM: [but no=no:: [no no
DAD: [loro no? DAD: [they can’t?
MUM: lì no ((fa cenno di no con la MUM: not there ((waving the ‘no’
mano come per prolungare il sign as if to extend the
verbale)) verbal ‘no’))
DAD: dai! su! DAD: come on! enough!
MUM: perché lì me s=mi schizzate MUM: because there you s= you
parlate, andatevi a splutter to me ((as an ethic
specch(h)ia’ °h° .hh he allo dative)) by talking, go
specchio vostro! (0.5) che ce loo(h)k at your se(h)lves °h°
trovo sempre tutti i .hh in your mirror! (0.5)
schizzetti (se vede) che because I then always find
parlano ((rivolta alla your small spittles (it is
telecamera)) con la saliva, le visible) I guess they speak
manate! andate in camera ((Mum addresses herself to the
vostra a specchiavve video camera)) with their
saliva, the fingermarks! go
to your room to look at
yourself
In the Cilo family, the mother is talking about the house as if she
was talking about herself. Colours, most of the objects, as well as the
furniture are justified as her own products and choices. She attributes
all the merit to herself, even though she accepts some other ‘place
ownerships’ (like the girls’ room or the father’s influence on it). The
descriptive shift from the house to the self is immediate, consequen-
tial and logical, as if these were two comprising parts of the same
164

subject. The curtains symbolize, in the mother’s words, her character,

and the whole tour resembles a process of continuous ‘looking at the
mirror’.
This peculiar relationships between the Cilos’ Mum and her
domestic space are perhaps more understandable once we know the
essential features of the family’s daily context. The Cilo family lives in
a popular borough of Rome. Mum left her previous job as a shop assist-
ant when the first daughter was born and she wanted to stay with the
newborn child. Since then she has worked as a cleaning agent. In
speaking about herself, Mum seems to evaluate her role as a mother
and as housewife as satisfactory, with competences that are fully recog-
nized by her husband. Cleanliness and tidiness are her causes of pride.
She states often that she is ‘jealous’ of the house and she does not want
her daughters to create disorder.
As was also the case with the father in the Cali family, the Cilos’
mother here strongly complains of the mess caused by her daughters
(ex. 7): staining the glass in the living room is interpreted by her as
offensive and aggressive behaviour against her person that she
attempts to prevent through the exercise of control and criticism (‘there
you s=splutter to me’). It is worth noting, in this regard, the idiomatic
and regional use of the dative pronoun me (mi schizzate= you splutter
it to me), conveying the sense of personal belonging and personal
concern which the mother casts upon the object, together with a sense
of obligation and respect that the daughters should display towards
her in acting towards that object (note also that the dative pronoun is
often used in dialect to complain about children’s refusal of ‘their
mum’s’ food).
Bateson (1980) suggests paying careful attention to the effects of a
conservative tonality that are typical of systems linked by relationships
of ‘abduction’. If I describe parts of the external world in a way that is
similar to the traits of the self, in order to effect possible changes in one
of the two systems, these have to satisfy a double requisite: ‘It must fit
the organism internal demands for coherence, and it must fit the
external requirements of environment’ (Bateson, 1980, p. 158).
Now, by re-defining the perspective of Bateson as devoid of any
mentalistic temptation, it is possible to obtain some discourses that
emphasize ‘abductive relationships’, in that they laterally link the
characteristics of the actor to the external world, to strategies of power,
to control over change, to legitimization in the use of spatial resources,
in our case.
Styles of self-representation, strategies of authority negotiation, of
control over order—as in the case of the Calis’ father and the Cilos’
165

mother—easily appear in the process of personalization of objects and

spaces.
In conclusion, it is worth underlining that we categorized ‘pre-
dominant appropriations’ as discourses which define a sort of identifi-
cation between individuals and their houses, and which are
characterized by a direct and ‘transformative’ intervention of a family
member into the living space, her/his decisive participation in the
‘birth’ of a house. In this study, three families out of eight marked this
type of space appropriation. In two instances, the protagonists were the
fathers (Cali and Pico). In the last case, it was the mother (Cilo). There
seem to be two forms of discourse about ‘predominant appropriations’
constructed by social actors. They mark, on the one hand, the
structural, enduring, material, functional quality of space; on the other
hand, they mark the aesthetic, formal and ‘frivolous’ aspect of space
and objects. Respectively, the fathers in the Cali and Pico families
underline stable and permanent aspects of living: the planning and a
partial design of some space and furniture by the Calis’ father, and an
almost global planning and design of the furniture by the Picos’ father.
The latter reveals an additional element of the complex system of
projections onto domestic space: the presence of his father’s figure
sheds some light on the processes of appropriation. ‘This furniture too
was made by my father and °me° they are very simple but:: (1.0) real
wood, I am very attached to these things’ (Picos’ father, video tour).
The word ‘real’, in relation to the wood the furniture is made of, reveals
the sincerity of his sentiments, framing the whole family context. This
phrase could be interpreted as follows: this furniture is simple but the
wood is just as natural as we are, as our family is and has been, from
generation to generation.
As for the Cilos’ mother, her discourse about the space (and her
relationship with it) takes on a different form. First of all, it involves
aspects that are related to ephemeral dimensions (decorations, objects,
colours) and aesthetics. Secondly, it is mostly shown through everyday
practices, often oriented towards unquestionable control over the
house and its uses by the rest of her family.
‘Kingdoms’ . . . and Exiles

We borrowed this category from the participants’ use of the term
‘kingdom’ in describing certain spaces in the house and linking them
to a particular family member. The common meaning of this term
attributes exclusive control to an individual over a specific place,
although the term has many meanings such as: (1) monarchy; or
(2) residence of power and predominance. Figuratively speaking, the
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expression to be within one’s kingdom also means feeling comfortable, to

be in the right, ‘more congenial environment’ (Webster’s Dictionary).
These definitions allow us to define a further concept: that of a
kingdom as having boundaries and internal laws that are characterized
by a continuity of its occupation. Which of these meanings correspond
to the ways the term is used in our settings? Not considering specific
meanings, the way the term ‘kingdom’ is employed by the participants
in the examples can also imply irony and sarcasm, especially when it is
referred to stereotyped relationships between space and roles, shown in
statements such as ‘the kitchen and the house are women’s kingdom’.
We chose the term ‘exile’ as a counterpoint to the observed use of
kingdom in our settings; other ways of relating in which the two terms
are necessarily connected would deserve further exploration. Exile is
‘a forced or voluntary removal from one’s homeland’ (Webster’s
Dictionary), which might be or has become in its turn someone else’s
kingdom. These categories might appear cryptic, reflecting the equally
cryptic nature of the data they are derived from and applied to.
We have chosen to show three examples containing reference to the
‘kingdom’ category, which we then comment on altogether.
Excerpt 8: ‘The reference point’
Giti family—Father’s video tour
Mother (MUM) (35 years old), Father (DAD) (42 years old), Elena (EL)
(8 years old), Alice (AL) (1.5 years old)
DAD: decisamente, il soggiorno, è DAD: the living room, is, (1.0) the
(1.0) il luo:go per me (1.0) di reference poi:nt (1.0) for me
riferimento (0.5) della casa. (0.5) of the house. (2.5) >first
(2.5) >in primo luogo perché of all because all my books
ci sono tutti i miei libri<. are here<. (. . .) .hhh ↑ then
(. . .).hhh, ↑ poi c’è la TV, con there is the TV, with the our
le nostre connessioni, satelli- satellite connections. (3.0)
tari. (3.0) e c’è- la scrivania and there’s- a desk with the
con il computer, (2.0) e il computer, (2.0) and the
collegamento internet. (. . .) internet cable. (. . .) hh. my:,
hh. i miei:, momenti privati private moments actually
in realtà (1.0) non vengono (1.0) are not lived here. hh!
vissuti qui. hh! ((sorride)) ((smiles)) °but°, when I
°ma° quando ho un attimo have just a little time I take
di tempo prendo la chitarra, my guitar, (0.5) and I
(0.5) e mi trasferisco, (2.0) move, (2.0) ((he enters the
((entra in camera da letto)) bedroom))
DAD: in camera da letto a suonare DAD: to the bedroom to play (3.0)
(3.0) per non disturbare so as not to disturb Elena
Elena che guarda la TV. who is watching TV.
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Excerpt 9: ‘Domains and kingdoms’

Giti family—Father’s video tour
DAD: la stanza di Elena, è il DAD: Elena’s room, is Elena’s
dominio incontrastato di undisputed domain. this
Elena. questo sarà il luogo will be the place of future
di future battaglie (0.5) tra battles (0.5) between Elena
Elena e Alice (. . .) ↑ non and Alice (. . .) ↑ I don’t say
dico che è off-limits questa this room is off-limits, but
stanza, ma sicuramente (4.0) surely (4.0) ((close-up of
((primo piano della foto di Elena’s picture on the
Elena appesa ad un lato wardrobe)) ↓ she is the
dell’armadio)) ↓ questa è la owner (1.0) and no one
padrona (1.0) e non c’è else interferes at the
nessun altro che per il moment. (5.0)
momento s’intrometta. (5.0)
time 08:49 ((DAD enters in the
tem 08:49 ((DAD entra in cucina kitchen where the mother is busy
dove c’ è MUM affaccendata)) with meal preparations))
DAD: questo è il regno della DAD: and this is mother’s
madre (.) invece. kingdom (.) instead.
Excerpt 10: ‘My space’

Giti family—Father’s audio tour
DAD: (. . .) ti dico mi mancherebbe, DAD: (. . .) I am telling you, I
mi manca, mi manca, mi miss, , I miss, I miss a piece
manca un pezzo, mi manca of roo=my own piece see?
un pezzo di stanz=un pezzo a- a private place in which I
mio no? un luogo di- di can write and read, see?
privacy per scrivere per
(. . .)
leggere no?
DAD: there was a time when
(. . .)
Elena was still small and
DAD: c’è stato un periodo in cui slept with us, when I used
Elena ancora piccola che to go to her room to be able
dormiva qui da noi, in cui io to work. I don’t have this
la sera mi mettevo in camera possibility any longer,
sua col computer e potevo Elena is there, Alice is here
lavorare. Adesso questa
possibilità non ce l’ho più, lì
c’è Elena, Alice
168

The Giti family have been living in a nice residential borough on the
outskirts of Rome for seven years. The flat measures 60 square metres,
has never been modified, and there are no plans for renovating it. Our
fieldwork with this family has been rather difficult. Their participation
in the research was mediated by the school attended by the daughters,
but we often wondered among our research group why the family had
volunteered to participate. In fact on the first days of the video record-
ings there was awkward behaviour, particularly from the father, that
at times became a form of confused intolerance. Whether it was
directed at us or at himself is hard to say, perhaps due to the difficulties
experienced in carrying out the study. Over the course of the research
(after the interview, we visited each family six times) we became aware
of certain entrenchments: some ironic messages revealed to us an
uneasiness on the part of the couple, overtly or covertly communicated
according to the situation. There was also a request for help that our
research group was not in a position to respond to.
In the Giti family (ex. 8), the father sketches kingdoms within the
house: the kitchen is the mother’s kingdom and he sees it as a place
with a strictly functional meaning; Elena’s room is a place from which
he was exiled for family needs. The way he discusses spatial domains
ironically—but also rather painfully—emphasizes the ‘tyrannies’ of the
others towards him. He evidently describes himself as excluded from
various places and denies being himself the holder of a kingdom. The
point of reference he highlights is the living room. The expression he
uses lacks strong individualistic connotation and reveals an appropri-
ation that is more moderate in that it includes also his family’s appro-
priations (see how he addresses the satellite connections as ours,
meshing personal and collective aspects of belonging). The living room
has a library with his books, defined as the ‘the most important personal
thing that I have’, the grandfather’s writing desk and his musical instru-
ments. As observed by the researchers, the father spends most of his
time in the living room reading, watching TV, listening to music and
using the computer. The living room is not completely described as his
own since, by its very nature, it is a place he shares with all family
members. His private moments, such as playing the guitar, are spent in
the bedroom, so as, in his own words, ‘not to disturb Elena’.
It is interesting to mention that the living room was commented on
by an external observer who wrote the ethnographic notes as the
father’s kingdom; yet the father, though acknowledging that it is full
of his personal belongings, chooses another space as his private one. He
says that he needs to have his own ‘part’ (ex. 10), expressing his
unsatisfied sense of ownership only partly projected in the living room
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and interpreted as a result of his exile. The room he used to have all
for himself has now changed, due to family needs, into his ‘daughter’s
domain’. Here again, the participant claims dissatisfaction and a sense
of nostalgia—see the expression ‘there was a time’, which casts in a
seemingly mythic time a sense of satisfaction, personal well-being or
fortune—for something that has changed and denied him part of his
rights and spaces (cf. ex. 1 ‘The conquest of the condominium terrace’).
Dad’s lack of vital space is reported as emotional and as the source of
a perpetuated claim.
Excerpt 11: ‘Every plate is a memory’
Giti family—Mother’s video tour
MUM: (. . .) allora la cucina mi mi MUM: (. . .) so I love the kitchen.

piace tantissimo. perché? why? because there are lots
perché ci sono un sacco di of nice things, cups, plates,
oggetti carini, le tazze, i every plate (.) is a memory,
piatti, ogni piatto (.) un
ricordo,
Excerpt 12: ‘A necessary thing’

Giti family—Interactional data (Saturday morning)
(8 years old), Alice (AL) (1.5 years old), RES (researcher)
(13.0) ((MUM stira in cucina)) (13.0) ((MUM is doing the ironing

in the kitchen))
MUM: poi qui in cucina all’inizio
c’era solo lo stereo (0.5) non MUM: and then, here in kitchen at
per stirare ma più- più pe::r the beginning there was
r per quando cucino, only a stereo (0.5) not for
mettevo la musica. (0.5) ironing but rather more
invece poi con le ↓ partite:: fo- fo::r cooking, I turned on
the music. (0.5) but then
RES: mhh [m(h)ph:: M(H)mf!
with the football ↓ matches::
MUM: [↑ è diventata una
RES: mhh [m(h)ph:: M(H)mf!
cosa,
MUM: [↑ it has become a
RES: h.!
thing,
MUM: necess[aria (l’altra TV)
RES: h.!
AL: [è mu::cca!
MUM: necess[ary::: (the other TV)
MUM: (in cucina),
AL: [it is a co::w!
MUM: (in the kitchen),
170

(1.0) (1.0)
AL: è mu:[cca! AL: it is a co:[w!
MUM: [ci troviamo io e MUM: [there’s me and
Elena qua Elena here
RES: h. ah! RES: h. ah!
MUM: (in queste:)la domenica MUM: (in these:) on Sunday
pomeriggio, (1.0) a afternoons, (1.0) to watch
guardare la tv se c’è=no: a TV if there’s =no: m: I mean
guardare la tv, m: vabbé to watch TV, (1.0) if there’s
(1.0) se c’è un programma one of Elena’s programmes
di Elena che ci piace that we like
The mother, in the Giti family, talks affectively about the kitchen
as her ultimately favourite place, ‘I love the kitchen’. She does not
define it as ‘her kingdom’, like her husband does. It is definitely the
space where she spends most of her time, both doing her domestic
duties (cooking, washing dishes, etc.), and carrying out other
activities—such as ironing or changing the cover of her daughter’s
copybook—that she chooses to do in the kitchen. The mother claims a
strong ‘sympathy’ for the kitchen and its objects. The kitchen is
described, actually, as a personal ‘landscape of memories’ for her; there
are personal objects (plates, cups and other tools) that are linked to her
biography rather than to the family’s history (going by what she says
in her video tour). It is hence a place that she likes for the objects it
contains and the memories it evokes. She feels comfortable in the
kitchen and it can be interpreted as her kingdom considering the
definitions at the beginning of the section, even though she never
herself defines it as such. Excerpt 12 (especially its last line) shows that
this kingdom was also probably constructed as the result of an exile.
Her words ‘then with the football matches’ are interpreted as ironic by
the researcher (who starts to laugh) but are actually produced by her
in a rather melancholy fashion, as the tone of her voice drops and her
eyes fix on the iron. It is only after (partially overlapping) the
researcher’s uptake that the mother adapts to the ironic value of her
statement. To the eyes of the observer, the mother’s words seem to
define the kitchen as a refuge from a ‘forced’ exile caused by a lack of
shared interests with her husband. She probably takes shelter in the
kitchen because she implicitly recognizes her husband’s appropriation
of the living room and its technological equipment (i.e. hi-fi,
television).
All of the above seems to show, in our opinion, how new kingdoms
are established: sometimes as active, agentive appropriation, sometimes,
171

on the contrary, as the consequence of an exile, out of the necessity of

an unrealized ownership. In the case of the Giti family, these kingdoms
seem to reveal a lack of communication resulting from unachieved
mediations. Born as protective islands and a defence from potential
conflict, these kingdoms do not eliminate actual conflict but just make
it either silent or ‘hidden’. The house seems to be inscribed in an
incompatibility between the necessity to satisfy needs (the father’s
aspiration to self-realization and discretion and the mother’s longing
for sharing) and the family structure with its organizational and
affective needs.
‘Incomplete’ Appropriations: Negotiations in Progress

These are appropriations in the process of definition that are partially
recognized while still in progress, but have difficulty being accepted as
the process becomes concretely visible and reaches its conclusion.
These appropriations emphasize the dynamics of action, the systems
of negotiations and the implicit ‘decisional hierarchies’.
Excerpt 13: ‘So we can move it from here’
Ripe family—Interactional data (Saturday morning)
DAD: eh allora do=dove lo DAD: eh so wh=ere do we want

vogliamo mettere to put it ((pointing with his
((indicando, con un cenno del finger towards an airship
capo, il modello di dirigibile model on the living room
realizzato da Leonardo e table that was made by
posizionato sopra il tavolo della Leonardo)) given that it’s
sala da pranzo)) visto che è finished (.) so we can move
finito (.) così lo togliamo da it from here. have you
qua. gli hai trovato il posto? found a place? ((to
((a Leonardo)) Leonardo))
LE: ((fa cenno di no con il capo)) LE: ((makes a no gesture))
no no
DAD: ecco trovaglielo DAD: so you should find it
[così ( ) [so ( )
AN: [ce l’abbiamo? AN: [do we have one?
DAD: andiamo a cerca’ il posto DAD: let’s go, look for it come on!
dai! ((solleva i gomiti dal ((taking elbows off the table))
tavolo))
172

Excerpt 14: ‘What about your room?’

Ripe family—Interactional data (Saturday morning)
DAD: Ah! ((mentre esce dalla DAD: Ah! ((while he leaves the
cucina DAD vede Leonardo kitchen he sees Leonardo in
nel corridoio con il suo the corridor with his aircraft
dirigibile in mano))(1.0) model))(1.0) come (.) let’s
vieni (.) troviamogli un find a place for this thing
posto a questo coso (3.0) (3.0) ((DAD is walking
((DAD prosegue lungo il through the corridor to the
corridoio in direzione della kids’ room)) what about
camera dei figli)) ma da VOi? YOUR room?
(1.0) (1.0)
LE: boh! LE: I don’t know!
(2.0) (2.0)
DAD: se lo mettiamo lì all’AN- DAD: what if we put it there in
golo?((DAD e Leonardo the COrner? ((DAD and
entrano nella cameretta)) Leonardo enter the room))
The ‘dining room’, in the Ripe family, is commonly considered ‘the

room less used by all family members. . . even if I like it less than the
others . . . it is rather used as a hobby room’ (mother, video tour). It is
an unrealized place in its original functions and attributions and is
marked by spontaneous attempts at its transformation. The dining
room is gradually becoming, in a commonly accepted way, a ‘hobby
room’ for doing homework or ‘piling up stuff’. The former are
Leonardo’s attributions and his personal space use. From the ethno-
graphic observation it appears that it is actually Leonardo who mainly
‘occupies’ this room and always for the same category of activities—
decorating, constructing and doing model construction—and his
presence is accepted by all family members. However, when the
presence of an object—such as the aircraft resulting from his son’s
activity—tends to remain in the room, the father comments firmly that
it is time to ‘find it a place’ (ex. 13). The ‘exceptional’ temporary
occupation of the dining room is accepted, as is the process of appro-
priation during the ‘doing’ of the activity, whereas the stabilization of
and therefore a conclusive attribution to that particular place are
refused. Leonardo does not provide an immediate response to the
received appeal but he appears respectful and obliging. In this excerpt,
the father leaves his son with the possibility to choose where to put the
173

object and offers his own participation (‘let’s find a place for this thing’)
that fakes cooperation but is actually a leading role in making a final
decision. After a few minutes, (ex. 14) while Dad is engaged in the
kitchen, Leonardo takes the model in order to find a new place for it.
The father understands this intention while leaving the kitchen and
directly takes on the task. He follows the son and enters the corridor
leading to the kids’ room. It’s only then that that he asks the following
question, ‘what about YOUR room?’ Leonardo does not respond
directly and lets the father attend to his own plan. The father’s entrance
in the children’s bedroom reveals the paternal solution. The choice was
directly oriented towards what is officially accepted as Leonardo’s
space, his room. Inside this room, both parents (in the interactional
data we can see also the mother’s entrance, after a few seconds, with
respect to ex. 14) continue to be predominant in terms of suggesting
places to put the aircraft and Leonardo has almost no possibility of
interfering. Is his room an ‘incomplete appropriation’? This example
demonstrates how the processes of appropriation are often transitory
and unstable and need a continuous re-definition due to the hier-
archical nature of the relationships in the family (especially those of
parents/children).
In the Ripe family there is a categorial co-existence of collective and
individual. The family unity and every single member live in a
continuous reciprocity that finds visibility not only in everyday
practices and ways of relating, but also in the structuring of house
spaces. This ‘cooperative’ and ‘democratic’ family structure appears as
an ideal model that guides practices and relationships (necessarily
involving house spaces as well) but which should be continuously re-
assessed and re-negotiated in the course of everyday family life.
Conclusions
In the above exposition we described and interpreted how personal-
izations, self-attributions, self-representations, social interactions with
conflicts and negotiations, which have been shown in family
discourses and practices, have to do in a range of ways with the
dynamics of domestic space appropriations, if we leave aside views
of both ownership and territoriality and a strictly symbolically
structuralist conception (like the one proposed by Bourdieu, 1969).
Our main interest was devoted here to showing how appropriation
dynamics can be found in our Italian middle-class working families.
The research is based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork (video-
recorded) in family households that examines, in the course of one
174

week, the everyday lives of eight middle-class Italian working families

in Rome.
The previous analyses represent the processes developing within
families that lead to a definition of domestic space as ‘personal’,
‘exclusive of’, ‘ascribed to’ a particular individual or are self-attributed.
In this study, the occurrence of the ‘sympathies’ and attachment bonds
between spaces and people have been examined in terms of ‘space
appropriations’ in order to underline the dynamic and fluent dimen-
sion of these processes. The analysis of the data corpus allowed us to
identify a series of possible and unusual categories—derived closely
from the participants’ categories—that broaden the already existing
ways of discussing house spaces. The collected data have given us the
possibility to observe ‘dynamic appropriations’ according to two main
perspectives. On one hand, the video and audio tours allowed us to
gather the self- and hetero-attributions of places of family members,
which were perhaps stimulated—reflexively—by our research
methods. Most of the identified categories were drawn from the
audio and video tours of the house focusing on the spatial self-
representations of the participants. On the other hand, the visual
ethnography and the videotapes of everyday practices and discourses
allowed us to observe place negotiations in progress, revealing the
instability and continuous dynamism of appropriation processes. The
last excerpts—from 12 to 14—show the utility of devoting a thorough
examination to all these everyday family practices that permit us to
emphasize how self-representations are progressively constructed.
It is worth mentioning that the ‘attempt to analyse domestic spaces’
has provided useful elements for understanding the ways in which
individual and collective spaces are mutually defined in our Italian
families. The first part of analysis included excerpts which recall—in a
provocative way—the concept of ‘territoriality’ largely utilized by
environmental psychology. In particular we have been led to think
about the physical demarcations, conquest strategies (‘The conquest of
the condominium terrace’, ‘Politically correct appropriations’) and
‘symbolic’ definitions of family identities (‘Thresholds and demar-
cations’) created by the family members to construct ownership and
‘territorial’ boundaries with the ‘external’ world.
The second part of the study identified ‘predominant’ appropriations
as sorts of identification between the living space and the family
member that can be interpreted by the employment of the notion of
‘abduction’, proposed by Bateson (1980). This expresses a quality of the
relationships between different systems, for example human beings and
things, that creates particular isomorphisms.
175

Sovereign and painful ‘proscriptions’ pertain to another category,

when specific parts of the house are considered by the family members
to be the ‘kingdoms’ of given individuals. The analysis seems to show
that this category is used by family members to underline the incom-
patibility, inscribed in the house, between the necessity to satisfy indi-
vidual needs and the family structure with its organizational and
affective exigencies.
It has also been noted that there is a trend towards a pragmatic re-
definition in relation to the new—and probably not rationalized—
’moves’ of appropriation of some family members (‘incomplete
appropriations’).
It should not be ignored that the categories of spaces, representations
and practices related to them provided the key reading for the under-
standing of family styles. The game of projections, symbolizations and
ways of relating derived from spaces reveal peculiar ways of ‘doing
family’: family cultural identities ‘emerge’ from house space, and
through house spaces the families define themselves.
However, in interpreting observed discourses and practices, in this
first phase of analysis, we haven’t had the objective of building
‘cultural links’ that could generalize on the relationship between
domestic space and Italian families. We think, however, that a micro-
analytic interpretation, such as we have proposed here, can already
underline communicational and relational styles, which until now
have remained internal to our Italian cultural representation and raise
further questions that could be compared with other cultural
communities.
Acknowledgements
The study for this article has been supported by a grant from the Sloan
Foundation for the years 2002–2007. This presentation has benefited from
the contributions of all the members of the Italian CELF (see
www.uniroma1.it/icelf). The authors have also tried to address the
suggestions arising from academic presentations and sessions within the
CELF international research group. Special thanks to Ph Dr Marilena
Fatigante, extraordinary interlocutor, who helped us in revising the
transcriptions and the analyses of the interactional excerpts.
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Biographies
SABINA GIORGI is a Ph.D. student in psychology of interaction,
communication and socialization at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’. She
specializes in museum anthropology. She has undertaken research and
didactic activity within the cultural anthropology field. ADDRESS: Sabina
Giorgi, Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, Via dei Marsi,
78, 00185 Rome, Italy. [email: sabina.giorgi@uniroma1.it]
VINCENZO PADIGLIONE teaches cultural anthropology and museum

anthropology at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’. He has carried out field
researches in the Mediterranean area on male friendship, family relationships
in hunting rituals and shepherd work practices. ADDRESS: Vincenzo
Padiglione, Department of Psychology, Via dei Marsi, 78, 00185 Rome, Italy.
[email: vincenzo.padiglione@uniroma1.it]
CLOTILDE PONTECORVO is Full Professor of Psychology at the University

of Rome ‘La Sapienza’. Her studies have concerned discourse and reasoning
in family and school and early literacy development, in preschool and school
settings. More recently she has directed research on Italian family dinner
conversations. ADDRESS: Clotilde Pontecorvo, Department of Developmental
and Social Psychology, Via dei Marsi, 78, 00185 Rome, Italy.
[email: clotilde.pontecorvo@uniroma1.it]
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Appropriations: Dynamics of Domestic Space Negotiations in Italian Middle-Class Working Families

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Abstract This article concerns the dynamics of domestic space

Key Words domestic space, dynamic appropriations, family

Sabina Giorgi, Vincenzo Padiglione and

Introduction: Home as a Fuzzy Object of Study

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residents. This analysis allows us to understand cultural and in-

Appropriation Spaces versus Place Ownership

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each family member, which are dependent on his or her own

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cautious reservation is that Bourdieu does not offer an account of the

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‘Close’ Concepts: Territoriality

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identities. Some studies have concentrated on the examination of terri-

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this article is to interpret how the domestic space is negotiated, person-

• Audio tours: audio-taped tours (in total eight of 50 minutes each) of

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The ‘space practices’ within the domestic context were observed

At the Outside of the House: ‘Territorial’

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definition of ‘territorial’ boundaries recognized as such, and link a

The ‘Conquest’ of the Condominium Terrace

DAD: dunque io inizierei:: il mio DAD: so I’d start:: my tour, (1.0)

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legitimacy it purports to have: it remains exclusively as his personal

‘Politically Correct’ Appropriations

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DAD: l’entrata, dall’esterno, DAD: entrance into the apartment

In this excerpt, the motivation chosen to account for the use of

Thresholds and ‘Demarcations’

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MUM: la mezuzà è un: simbolo MUM: mezuzah is a: Jewish

The Olmi family is Jewish and its religious belonging is often

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on behalf of the family, by establishing a strong link with her cultural

‘Taking Possession of ’ Places within the House

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It is useful to mention that the Calis’ father personally supervised

In excerpt 5 the father employs specific vocabulary in talking about

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(‘mortified’), as if emotions would directly map from space onto

MUM: queste bellissime tende che MUM: these wonderful curtains

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MUM: anche il mio carattere=io MUM: also my character=I am a

Excerpt 7: ‘You splutter it to me’

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subject. The curtains symbolize, in the mother’s words, her character,

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mother—easily appear in the process of personalization of objects and

‘Kingdoms’ . . . and Exiles

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expression to be within one’s kingdom also means feeling comfortable, to

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Excerpt 9: ‘Domains and kingdoms’

Excerpt 10: ‘My space’

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MUM: (. . .) allora la cucina mi mi MUM: (. . .) so I love the kitchen.