Description: This book critically analyses the contemporary home and its close relationship to fear and security, a relationship fuelled by the corporate and political manufacturing of fear, the triumph of neoliberal models of home-ownership and related modes of social individualisation and risk that permeate contemporary society.
Review Quotes:
'By focusing on homeownership and tenure, Atkinson and Blandy insightfully connect the privatization of well-being, fear of crime and financial insecurity with contemporary changes in the meaning of home. They capture the important relationship between the private home, political life and the economy through their concept of "tessellated neoliberalism" that examines how aspects of home ownership-- markets, interest rates, mortgages and home values--are implicated in the transformation of home as a haven to home as asset and source of insecurity. A must-read for both social scientists and legal scholars interested in housing and governance.'
Setha Low, The Graduate Center, CUNY, author of Behind the Gates: Life, Security and the Pursuit of Happiness in Fortress America
Stephen Graham, Newcastle university, author of Cities under Siege 'Subject to the forces of neoliberalism, the home is becoming the Domestic Fortress the authors tirelessly investigate. Rowland Atkinson and Sarah Blandy cover the topic exhaustively in a fascinating interdisciplinary study, which is a must read for anyone interested in the links between emotional security, private security, surveillance and the architecture of an increasingly militarised environment.'
Anna Minton, author of Ground Control