The Before & After of our Homes

My room and I have developed quite the intimate relationship this past year. Some might say almost nearing the closeness of my my decade-long love story between my boobs and a bra. One day, someone made a comment and I was asked to wear it (or stay in it). Over time, the relationship changes (as my mom graciously reminds me, no relationship comes without its highs and lows!). Sometimes I forget its there (or that I’m there), other times I spend hours itching about, annoyed at its shape and deficiencies (get me out of here!). I trail off staring at the corners of my room, thinking about the 5x4m of my confined space. Reflecting on the speckled nature of the ceiling. Or the dust on my floor. How has it been for you? 

On-going Student set-up 2020/21

Images collected by Alie Fordyce (Graduate student at Georgetown University)

What do you notice in your environment? Send me a picture at angelalm@mit.edu

While I am ultimately fortunate to be able to work from this cyborgian machine we call a computer, from which I can just spend my whole day in front of and with which I complete all my “incredibly valuable” tasks for society, I began to wonder what it’s like for others who might not rely on a laptop. How does your home transform to suit work without a laptop?

What started as a curious thought is transforming into a deeper investigation of at-home production. The prospect and desires of starting a home-based business (HBBs) is certainly no new phenomenon. Agricultural production is perhaps the most obvious example of at-home production that has existed for millennia. Prior to the industrial revolution, we relied on cottage industries as a localized, and small-scale form of production, as shown in Figure 1 below:

Figure 1: A comparison between 18th century cottage industry and today’s home-based businesses

Yet even beyond rural areas, Marion Behr officially coined the term home-based business in 1978 to carry out a study about women conducting businesses in their homes across the USA.[1] Today, over forty years later, a recent study in the U.K. has shown that home-based businesses experience more growth and employment benefits when located in a city, as opposed to outside of one. [2] For HBBs, the urban has become more favorable than the rural. Yet, while extensive literature exists on large-scale manufacturing in cities, what might production processes look like for these smaller businesses that require on-site production in urban areas?

Welcome to “The Home as Factory”, a column that taps into individual homes as a way to assess questions of location, production process, environmental impact, and urban governance. It is an ethnographic pursuit (for now) that looks at three individuals who have started their own business from home in three cities: Munich, Boston, and London.

Figure 2: *Photos are representative of typology of homes but not exact replica for privacy reasons*

The e-commerce space is growing as a rapid alternative to the traditional brick-and-mortar retail store. (Virtual) places like Amazon handmade, Facebook Marketplace, eBay, and Etsy are all experiencing growth in users. Facebook Marketplace boasted over 800 million users in 2020. Etsy is still experiencing high growth rates, 19.6% in 2019, and is expected to continue growing.[3] The small scope of the research is certainly a weakness; and readers are not expected to draw large-scale generalizations (it is three homes out of thousands in each city, as shown in Figure 2). Nonetheless, its smallness is also its greatest strength: it challenges the homogeneity associated with our understanding of manufacturing, particularly at a micro-scale. One such strength is the ability to look at orientation. Orientation not of the sun or of our streets; but of our lives and consumption patterns themselves.

Figure 3: Connecting systems of production to our orientation and profession

Husserl believed that “orientations are about how we begin; how we proceed from ‘here,’ which affects how what is ‘there’ appears, how it presents itself.”[4] Most powerfully, feminist theorist Ahmed explains how “life itself” is often imagined as having direction.[5] We know we are, there are certain hoops we are expected to jump through: get married, have kids, get a job, buy a house. There is straightness to it, a linearity. As a society we have crafted a particular definition of being inline with orientation, and in doing so, have made it clear when one is deviating. These three stories are emblems of a self-driven, alternative reality to the 9-5 pm norm. Micro-producers serve as a subversive mechanism of freeing (or trapping?) oneself from established and low-skill jobs; to imagine new possibilities and to bring one's skills to a new country (as you will see with the carpenter Kurt). It is a space of transition, separate from the harsh forces of the established capital market, yet not outside of it. It is not always rainbows and roses, but as Sara Ahmed writes, “when description becomes hard, we need description.”[6] The aim is to more closely examine the spatial role of the “home” for these businesses and to expose specificities to micro-producers as an unexplored urban occurrence.

This research was supported by the Future Urban Legacy Lab (FULL) at the Politecnico di Torino in January 2021, and a special thanks to Matteo Robiglio and Laura Martini for their continued guidance.

Written Sources:

[1] Behr, Marion. Women Working Home: the Homebased Business Guide and Directory. WWH Press, 1983.

[2] Houston, Donald, and Darja Reuschke. “City Economies and Microbusiness Growth.” Urban Studies, vol. 54, no. 14, Nov. 2017, pp. 3199–3217., www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26428378.

[3] Fareeha Ali | Mar 2, 2020, et al. “Etsy's Sales Grow 26% in 2019.” Digital Commerce 360, 2 Mar. 2020, www.digitalcommerce360.com/2020/03/02/etsys-sales-grow-26-in-2019/#:~:text=sales last year.-,Etsy Inc.,from $3.93 billion in 2018.&text=Etsy's gross merchandise sales grew,low 14% growth in 2017.

[4] As quoted in Ahmed, Sara. On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. Duke University Press, 2014.

[5] Ahmed, Sara. The Promise of Happiness. Duke University Press, 2010.

[6] Ahmed, Sara. On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. Duke University Press, 2014.

Image Sources:

Figure 1: (left) “Cottage Industry vs. Factory System.” History Crunch - History Articles, Summaries, Biographies, Resources and More, www.historycrunch.com/cottage-industry-vs-factory-system.html#/.

Figure 1: (right) Personal image taken of Kurt’s workshop in Somerville, MA.

Figure 2: (Sources of images in order from left to right) https://charlescherney.com/listing/72801968/68-albion-street-somerville-ma-02143/, https://www.countrylife.co.uk/property/london-property/five-bedroom-family-house-in-putney-19286, https://www.neubaukompass.com/property/w36-muenchen-solln/,

Figure 3: Diagrams by author