The Homeowner as Socio-Political Actor: Idle or Not?

This paper interrogates the enduring association between home ownership, place attachment, and conservation, or conservatism. It draws largely from Friedrich Engels’ canonical pamphlet ‘The Housing Question’ (1872); Engel’s theory calls for renewed attention as it sheds light on what happens to us, social and labouring beings, when we partake in the big project of owning our home. I demonstrate that strong and productive connections exist between the ‘Housing Question’ debate, contemporary politics, and contemporary housing discourse – discourse on individual autonomy and responsibility, state perfectibility, democratic health, leisure and familial reproduction. Engels’ rebuke of Proudhonist housing-related commendations continues to hold significance for understanding what home ownership is, and what it should – and should not – be. Drawing on the pamphlet, I conceptualize the figures of the Engelsian ‘unfettered’ dweller and the Proudhonist homeowner as respectively embodying revolutionary mobility and idle rootedness. In my analysis, idle rootedness refers to a subjective state that dwellers experience when they are safely and stably housed – this is especially so when they own their home. Idle rootedness is conceived as freedom (potential for socio-political action) in the Proudhonist approach; this directly contrasts with the Engelsian approach, which casts home ownership as unfreedom (socio-political inaction). Proprietorship and place attachment, in this latter sense, are conceptualized as practically antithetical to emancipatory futures. I discuss and partly challenge this latter view.