This article focuses on the governance of canals in England and Wales. The Canal & River Trust (CRT), the owner and manager of the waterways, has a statutory responsibility to grant ‘certificates’ or licences. The licence constructs a category called ‘continuous cruisers’ who live aboard their boat. Drawing on a sample of interviews with ‘continuous cruiser liveaboards’ (CCLs), we discuss how their governance by the CRT has gradually encroached on their everyday lives, leading them to reconsider their lives on the canal. We illustrate this through exploring how the CRT translated obscure legislation to make it legible through techniques of simplification, but did so in a way that had problematic effects on CCLs; and how apparently enabling and constraining regulation operates, paradoxically, in contradictory ways, both significantly affecting CCLs’ everyday lives. At heart, there is a simple story here of a nomadic way of life that is of relatively recent vintage but that is being (or perceived as being) sedentarized.

中文翻译：

---

治理运河生活

本文重点介绍英格兰和威尔士的运河治理。水道的所有者和管理者运河与河信托（CRT）负有授予“证书”或许可证的法定责任。执照建造了一个名为“连续巡洋舰”的类别，他们住在船上。通过对“连续巡洋舰船屋”（CCL）进行访谈的样本，我们讨论了CRT对他们的管理如何逐渐侵蚀了他们的日常生活，使他们重新考虑了在运河上的生活。我们通过探索CRT如何通过简化技术来翻译晦涩的法规以使其清晰易懂的方式来说明这一点，但是这样做的方式对CCL产生了问题。以及使监管变得明显和自相矛盾地如何以矛盾的方式运作，两者都极大地影响了CCL的日常生活。从本质上讲，这里有一个关于游牧生活方式的简单故事，这种生活方式是相对较新的年份，但已经（或被认为）是定居的。