Second homes, community and a hierarchy of dwelling

Abstract

The word 'dwelling', to dwell, supposes engagement, in the sense that those who dwell are seen to engage with others and, in doing so, contribute to social capital and cohesion expressed in the forming of 'community'. Second home buying may be viewed as a course of action severing the process-product link between dwelling and community, as a brake on the community building process. In this paper, I contrast the view of dwelling as process -and its coupling with the 'traditional' place-community -with alternative notions of dwelling, and argue that the prevailing view is largely concerned with public and collective dwelling (and 'productive interaction'), and underplays the importance of private dwelling, and hence the self-identity and orientation -key aspects of dwellingthat flow from the use of private property, including the use of second homes.

The Social Value of Second Homes in Rural Communities

“…Strangely, there is also a phenomenological basis to this pejorative view of second homes, building on the work of Heidegger once again, it might be suggested that second home owners have a tendency to engage in "private" (King 2004), rather than in more active forms of public or collective dwelling. Gallent (2007) argues that these latter forms (which are a corruption rather that an extension of Heidegger's thinking) have, in debates concerning community development and mutualism, been viewed as superior to the seemingly closed and inert nature of private dwelling. Moreover, the policy imperative to build "sustainable communities" (through British planning and local government policies and programmes in the example cited by Gallent) has led to the construction of a "hierarchy of dwelling", with clearly "active citizens" -who contribute in measurable ways to an agreed "stable" culture (King 2004, 23) -being endowed with greater legitimacy and morale rights.…”

“…It has been suggested that the alleged introversion of second home owners (or their long-term absence from host communities) may act to limit the scope of social interactions and therefore their contribution to community building (Gallent 2007; but see Huijbens 2012, for a counter-view). The extent to which a community is "built", through this interaction (Falk and Kilpatrick 2000), may be expressed in terms of the accumulation of "social capital" or the "resource potential of social relationships" (Agnitsch, Flora, and Ryan 2006, 36).…”

“…Such analysis edges back towards the pejorative and contributes to a view that second homes, being merely objects of desired consumption, are inessential. This question of the essential or inessential nature of second homes is taken up by Muller (2011) who questions the "inferior status" of second homes relative to "first homes" (ibid., 140), again referring to the strength of place attachment and also Gallent's (2007) contention that the owners of second homes engage in authentic "dwelling". The ownership and use of second homes in this literature exemplifies an important change in how people live, their consumption habits and their flexible (i.e.…”

“…The second rejects this philosophical treatment as esoteric, as lacking real merit, and sees great danger in the absentee owners of second homes failing to interact (to "bond"), day in, day out, with neighbours. Therefore, second homes are maligned as a non-authentic form of place-dwelling (Gallent 2007). The authenticity of dwelling is gauged not in phenomenological terms but in terms of interactive contribution; and because seasonal residents may be seen to interact less than permanent residents, the way in which they dwell may be judged to contribute little or nothing to "community-building" produced through social interaction (Falk and Kilpatrick 2000).…”

Second Homes and the Management of Local Development: Local Social Relations as a Predictor of Permanent and Temporary Residents’ Participation in the Development Planning Process

“…S druge strane, pretpostavka je da stalni stanovnici imaju dugoročan i ekonomski orijentiran odnos prema ruralnom prostoru u kojem žive (Green i dr., 1996;Gallent, 2007). S obzirom na tu okolnost, odnos između lokalnog i privremenog stanovništva često se interpretira kao antagonizam koji proizlazi iz različitih interesa unutar istog prostora koji mogu dovesti do određenih konflikata.…”