Policy Press

It’s Not Where You Live, It's How You Live

Class and Gender Struggles in a Dublin Estate

By John Bissett

Published

Jan 5, 2023

Page count

156 pages

ISBN

978-1447368229

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Policy Press

Published

Jan 5, 2023

Page count

156 pages

ISBN

978-1447368212

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Policy Press

Published

Jan 5, 2023

Page count

156 pages

ISBN

978-1447368236

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Policy Press

Published

Jan 5, 2023

Page count

156 pages

ISBN

978-1447368236

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Policy Press
It’s Not Where You Live, It's How You Live

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.

John Bissett is a community worker, activist and writer. He has been a community worker for over 35 years and has organised and participated in significant housing, anti-austerity and public debt campaigns. He is the author of Regeneration: Public Good or Private Profit and is a member of Housing Action Now.

He took an undergraduate degree in Sociology, English and Philosophy at the National University of Ireland Maynooth and then went on to do his masters and PhD in Sociology at University College Dublin.

1. Introduction

PART I: Ethography

2. Should I Stay or Should I Go?

3. Work Ethic 1

4. Work Ethic 2

5. The Food Chain

6. Means Ends

7. What Goes Around Comes Around

8. Fragile Beings

9. The Word

PART II: Critical Realism and Public Housing

10. From Manifest Phenomena to Generative Structures

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