It's not where you live, it's how you live : class and gender struggles in a Dublin estate

This ground-breaking and compelling book takes us deep into the world of a public housing estate in Dublin, showing in fine detail the life struggles of those who live there. The book puts the emphasis on class and gender processes, revealing them to be the crucial dynamics in the lives of public housing residents. The hope is that this understanding can help change perspectives on public housing in a way that diminishes suffering and contributes to human flourishing and well-being. Combining long-term research into residents’ lived experience with critical realist theory, it provides a completely fresh perspective on public housing in Ireland and arguably, beyond. As we enter the third decade of the twenty-first century, the world faces extraordinary system-level challenges-from deep inequality and xenophobic nationalism to militarism and neo-fascism, from the refugee crisis and environmental degradation to upsurges of social unrest 'from below' and escalating rivalries among powerful states. This book begins from the premise that world-systems analysis can be a powerful tool for the study of these problems, with the potential to overcome the methodological and theoretical limitations of other social science perspectives. The editors argue, moreover, that world-systems analysis can be strengthened by drawing on its holistic methodologies, returning to its Third World roots, and learning from other critical approaches. The authors in this volume not only make important contributions to comparative and historical social science, they also bring a new vigor to the world-systems perspective. Facing critical junctures in both the "state of knowledge" and the "state of the world," this book demonstrates the continued utility of, and future possibilities for, world-systems analysis Front Cover Testimonal page It's not where you live, it's how you live: Class and Gender Struggles in a Dublin Estate Copyright information Table of contents Acknowledgements Preface 1 Introduction A note on research methodology Outline of the book Part I Ethnography 2 Should I stay or should I go? 3 Work ethic 1 Frank Karl 4 Work ethic 2 Michelle Nadia 5 The food chain 6 Means ends 7 What goes around comes around What goes around comes around It’s not where you live, it’s how you live Conclusion A final ‘what comes around’ 8 Fragile beings 9 The word On Meg’s step one day Part II Critical realism and public housing 10 From manifest phenomena to generative structures Three themes 11 Class as the production of scarcity: wage, price, debt, food 12 Women and the affective domain of the Bridgetown Estate 13 Class geography: part of no part Conclusion: absenting absences, ills and constraints References Index This ground-breaking and compelling book shows in fine detail the life struggles of those who live on a public housing estate in Dublin. Combining long-term research into residents’ lived experience with critical realist theory, it provides a completely fresh perspective on public housing in Ireland and arguably, beyond.