ACCESS Seminar: Housing as an infrastructure of care

ACCESS Seminar: “It doesn't take much to break someone”: Housing as an infrastructure of care for low-income households in Western Sydney

Abstract:

We build on our work on shadow care infrastructures to explore the housing experiences of very low-income households in western Sydney. The paper is drawn from a larger project on shadow care infrastructures, as arrangements that sustain and organise the care practices of people living in poverty in post-welfare cities. The paper explores how refugees and asylum seekers, the unemployed and marginally employed and people living with a disability manage to survive and sometimes thrive in the unaffordable housing markets of Sydney. Our participants had a wide variety of housing circumstances, from couch surfing, living with family members, living temporarily supported by a service organisation, living in private rental, living in social housing to owner occupation. Their housing circumstances had an enormous impact on their capacity to care for themselves and other family members.

The paper explores the inadequacy of discussions about the costs of housing which focus solely on the monetary price that people pay for housing. Our research revealed the myriad of labours required for low income households to secure housing including: the labours of finding relatively cheap and often poor quality housing; the labours of caring for other people in exchange for housing; the labours of sustaining good relationships both within the household and with those who might provide housing; the labours of establishing a reputation as a good tenant; the labours of performing property maintenance and the labours of accessing other vital resources like food, clothing and materials for free or at low cost so that money can be directed to securing housing. The paper focuses on the variety of reciprocal relations that low-income people mobilise in order to be able to access housing. The paper illustrates the way shadow care infrastructures – both within and beyond the housing system –pattern low-income households' experiences and labours caring in and with housing.

Biography:

Associate Professor Kathy Mee is a cultural geographer who works in the Discipline of Geography and Environmental Studies and the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She is an award-winning teacher having won the University of Newcastle Excellence in Teaching Award in 1998, the Faculty of Science and IT Excellence in Teaching Award in 2008 and 2017, the Vice Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence and Contribution to Student Learning (Science) in 2017 and the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) Program Convenor Award in 2020. Her research explores housing and urban change, with a focus on care infrastructures. She is currently working on several projects investigating care infrastructures including an ARCDP grant with Emma Power, Ilan Wiesel and Emma Mitchell examining shadow care infrastructures in Western Sydney and a University of Newcastle grant with Julia Cook and Jai Cooper exploring the Grow a Star program of community housing organisation Home in Place as a care infrastructure. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Australian Geographer.