Introduction: Homes, Objects and Things

The authors that feature in this edition, with the exception of Dallas Rogers, presented their papers at a symposium that took place at the University of Tasmania in February 2012 to debate and reflect upon contemporary understandings of the meaning of home, household practices and sustainable housing amongst other topics. Our choice of the terms “objects and things” as the title for the symposium was deliberate; we wished to engage with a style of thinking in sociological and geographical research that emphasises materiality or material cultures. This approach gives prominence to visible objects and material things above values, discourse and ideologies, all of which have been dominant modes investigation in the field of housing studies of late. In this introduction, we begin with a discussion of the key assumptions that inform a material cultural approach, we then provide short summaries of the papers and we conclude with some observations about the challenges for researchers wishing to engage with this mode of enquiry.