ABSTRACT

Through an analysis of the materiality of practices, which includes kitchens, furniture and clotheslines, this article contributes to an understanding of ethics of dwelling that acknowledges humans’ and nonhumans’ entanglements in homes they inhabit together. It builds on a case study analysis of tenement houses – a common type of unregulated, private rented housing in Buenos Aires and New York City at the turn of the nineteenth century. The article draws on this type of housing to propose an understanding of ethics that reconsiders the emphasis on rule-following behaviour and judgement-based action, which has been influential in the study of ethics and morality across disciplinary boundaries. It shows that ethical practice is locally grounded, adaptive, and rooted in improvisation rather than in individual interest, universal reason or obedience to norms. Ethical practice is emplaced or place-based, but never place-bound. Home is reimagined as a material and affective place that is negotiated in practice and tied to other spaces and temporal horizons.

摘要

通过对包括厨房、家具和晾衣绳在内的实践的物质性的分析，本文有助于理解居住伦理，承认人类和非人类在他们共同居住的房屋中的纠缠。它建立在对出租房屋的案例研究分析基础上，该房屋是 19 世纪初布宜诺斯艾利斯和纽约市常见的一种不受监管的私人出租房屋。文章借鉴这种类型的住房提出了对道德的理解，重新考虑了对遵守规则行为和基于判断的行为的重视，这在跨越学科界限的伦理和道德研究中产生了影响。它表明道德实践是基于当地的、适应性的，并且植根于即兴创作而不是个人兴趣，普遍理性或对规范的服从。道德实践是固定的或基于地方的，但绝不是受地方限制的。家被重新想象为一个物质和情感的地方，在实践中协商并与其他空间和时间范围联系在一起。