Alva Gotby – författare

Housing is more than bricks and mortar. The home is where our hopes and dreams play out, and it lies at the heart of our lives. This is where we rest, eat, and relax. The home we enjoy can determine our health, life expectancy, and day-to-day well-being. In contrast, the lack of a stable residence can lead to mental and physical illness and often premature death. This is central to how we conceive of a good and dignified life.Feeling at Home grapples with the practical and emotional questions of housing - domestic labour, privacy, security, ownership, and health. Is it possible to imagine success without home ownership? Alva Gotby makes clear that solving the housing crisis is about much more than housing stock. It is about revolutionising our everyday lives and labours.

Housing is more than bricks and mortar. Feeling at Home grapples with the practical and emotional questions of housing - domestic labour, privacy, security, ownership, and health. Is it possible to imagine success without home ownership? Alva Gotby shows that solving the housing crisis is about much more than housing stock. It means revolutionising our everyday lives and labours.

Comforting a family member or friend, soothing children, providing company for the elderly, ensuring that people feel well enough to work; this is all essential labour. Without it, capitalism would cease to function. They Call It Love investigates the work that makes a haven in a heartless world, examining who performs this labour, how it is organised, and how it might change. In this groundbreaking book, Alva Gotby calls this work 'emotional reproduction', unveiling its inherently political nature. It not only ensures people's well-being but creates sentimental attachments to social hierarchy and the status quo. Drawing on the thought of the feminist movement Wages for Housework, Gotby demonstrates that emotion is a key element of capitalist reproduction. To improve the way we relate to one another will require a radical restructuring of society.