Vanessa May – författare

Examining the relationships between architecture, home and community in the Claremont Court housing scheme in Edinburgh, Home and Community provides a novel perspective on the enabling potential of architecture that encompasses physical, spatial, relational and temporal phenomena.

Based on the AHRC funded project "Place and Belonging", the chapters draw on innovative spatial layouts amid Scottish policymakers'' concerns of social change in the 1960s, to develop theoretical understandings between architecture, home, and community. By approaching the discourse on home, and by positioning the home at the confluence of a network of sociocultural identities bound by spatial awareness and design, the writers draw on sociological interpretations of cultural negotiation as well as theoretical underpinnings in architectural design. In so doing, they suggest a reinterpretation of the facilitating role of architecture as sensitive to physical and socio-cultural reconstruction.

Drawn from interviews with residents, architectural surveys, contextual mapping and other visual methods, Home and Community explores home as a construct that is enmeshed with the architectural affordances that the housing scheme represents, that is useful to both architecture and sociology students, as well as practitioners and urban planners.

Examining the relationships between architecture, home and community in the Claremont Court housing scheme in Edinburgh, Home and Community provides a novel perspective on the enabling potential of architecture that encompasses physical, spatial, relational and temporal phenomena.

Based on the AHRC funded project "Place and Belonging", the chapters draw on innovative spatial layouts amid Scottish policymakers'' concerns of social change in the 1960s, to develop theoretical understandings between architecture, home, and community. By approaching the discourse on home, and by positioning the home at the confluence of a network of sociocultural identities bound by spatial awareness and design, the writers draw on sociological interpretations of cultural negotiation as well as theoretical underpinnings in architectural design. In so doing, they suggest a reinterpretation of the facilitating role of architecture as sensitive to physical and socio-cultural reconstruction.

Drawn from interviews with residents, architectural surveys, contextual mapping and other visual methods, Home and Community explores home as a construct that is enmeshed with the architectural affordances that the housing scheme represents, that is useful to both architecture and sociology students, as well as practitioners and urban planners.

What can Sociology tell us about our personal lives, families and intimate relationships? This book explains how key theoretical perspectives and relevant contemporary research in the discipline can shed new light on even the most familiar areas of our everyday worlds. From friendships and pets, to political engagement and social legislation, the text shows how distinctions and connections can be drawn between our public and private lives. Each chapter explores a familiar topic that illustrates how individual relationships and lives can be shaped by social contexts, and how personal choices shape the wider social world. Using vivid case examples drawn from topical areas of debate, such as marriage rights and the role of social networking, the book is clearly laid out and easy to read. It gives useful explanations of theory and invaluable advice on how to carry out research on personal lives and relationships. This is essential reading for students of Sociology interested in family, relationships and beyond.

In this accessible and engagingly written book, Vanessa May invites readers into the rich world of thought, research and study of the highly diverse phenomenon of families and family life. The book explores what is and has been understood by ‘family’ in different sociocultural contexts and how family life intersects with social spheres such as the state, the labour market and the economy. Alongside broad social developments such as (post)colonialism and austerity and their connections with changing family patterns, the book engages interdisciplinary work on time, embodiment and materiality in order to offer a multidimensional perspective on the day-to-day lives of families. Drawing from research in the Global North and the Global South, the text carefully considers how people approach the study of families and thus offers insight into the shape of mainstream family studies today.

The book offers a timely intervention into current debates within family studies and suggests avenues of investigation that deserve further attention, and will be an invaluable resource to students and scholars alike.

This book assumes an “everyday life” perspective towards masking in public spaces in the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic. Facemasks are perhaps one of the most tangible ways in which the changes wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic were made visible. In the space of a few months in 2020, masking in the UK went from being almost non-existent in public to becoming widespread, both before and after the UK government mandated masking in most enclosed public spaces in July 2020. In this context, the speed and scale of the introduction of masking in public settings offers sociologists a rare chance to document the (contested) emergence of a new social practice. The authors argue that the nature of masking during the pandemic means that masking practices need to be understood through the entwinement of material, interactional, and moral dimensions. By developing a relational perspective to explore the relationship between the materiality and moral significance of masking, and how this translated into the development of masking practices in public spaces, the authors argue further that the specific context of masking during the pandemic provides sociologists with a unique lens to think through the nature of material, interactional, and moral practices in general.