Immaterial Inheritance

The Socialization of Cultures of Housing Consumption

Bibliographic Data

ID12633646
AuthorsMegan Nethercote (0000-0001-5091-8029, RMIT University, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume36
Issue3
Pages359-375
Publication date2018-06-29
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHousing Theory and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1403-6096 • E-ISSN: 1651-2278
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14036096.2018.1471002
OpenAlexW2809710503
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited44

This article progresses understandings of contemporary middle-class housing aspirations and the socialization of these within families. It examines Australian middle-class homeowners’ dispositions towards mortgage debt, using qualitative Bourdieusian analytics. By avoiding the common reduction of housing aspirations to tenure preferences, it foregrounds diverse orientations towards home-buying that suggest cultural forms of middle-class heterogeneity in the housing field. It then identifies how within-family socialization conditions these differing orientations, including through parental guidance and observational learning. This “immaterial inheritance” variously promotes and deters property speculation, for instance by imparting competence (e.g. housing literacy) and confidence to invest, and thus begins to shed light on the under-explored cultural dimensions of class in intensifying housing commodification. Sharper understandings of the trajectories of cultural capitals over time (and their interaction with trajectories of economic capitals), hold promise for explaining how these calibrate the way intergenerational transfers shape inequality

Commodification · Consumption (sociology · Economics · Economy · Inheritance (genetic algorithm · Market economy · Middle class · Social science · Socialization · Sociology · Speculation · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Social and Cultural Dynamics

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