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Store drømme i små huse: En sociologisk undersøgelse af tiny house-bevægelsen i Danmark

Oversat titel

Big dreams in small houses: A sociological study of the tiny house movement in Denmark

Semester

4. semester

Udgivelsesår

2022

Afleveret

Antal sider

87

Abstract

This master thesis offers a study of why some people choose to live in a tiny house and go against the current Danish housing trend where people prefer living in large and expensive houses. The study is based on 8 qualitative interviews with Danish tiny house dwellers and we uncover which values and ideas of a good housing life that the participants associate with living in a tiny house. The thesis has a phenomenologicalhermeneutic perspective and an exploratory approach to the field of study and draws on theories by Pierre Bourdieu, Mary Douglas, Thorkild Ærø, Hans Kristensen and Hans Skifter Andersen. We conclude that the participants predominantly understand their housing choices as a counterculture to the values and housing ideals of the consumer culture. They value minimalism, environmentalism, economic freedom and owning their own houses. Tiny housing can also be understood as connected to a certain lifestyle where the participants mainly are linked to the individualistic lifestyle and housing preference that value freedom and autonomy highly. At the same time, we understand the participants' housing preferences and way of doing housing through general housing choices and patterns in Denmark. What sets the participants apart are especially their preferences for a flexible house and lifestyle. The participants understand their tiny house as having a temporal dimension, where a tiny house accommodates their current needs and easily and with little economic resources can be moved, rebuilt or moved out of. We conclude that the participants want to live in a house that accommodates a flexible lifestyle and not necessarily in a tiny house. We raise the question whether the wish for flexibility only is connected to tiny house dwellers or is a general housing requirement and reaction to modern western society.