Housing Capital Resource and Representation
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Jahrbuch für Europäische Geschichte. European History Yearbook Jahrbuch für Europäische Geschichte European History Yearbook Herausgegeben von Johannes Paulmann in Verbindung mit Markus Friedrich und Nick Stargardt Edited by Johannes Paulmann in cooperation with Markus Friedrich and Nick Stargardt Band/Volume 18 Housing Capital Resource and Representation Edited by Simone Derix and Margareth Lanzinger Herausgegeben am Leibniz-Institut für Europäische Geschichte von Johannes Paulmann in Verbindung mit Markus Friedrich und Nick Stargardt Gründungsherausgeber: Heinz Duchhardt ISBN 978-3-11-052994-4 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-053224-1 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-053002-5 ISSN 1616–6485 Die Online Ausgabe steht unter einer Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND Lizenz (vgl. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/de/). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. © 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Titelbild: Traditional Flemish architecture in Bruges, Flanders, Belgium © Alexander Spatari / Moment / gettyimages Satz: Konvertus, Haarlem Druck und Bindung: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Gedruckt auf säurefreiem Papier Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com Contents Simone Derix and Margareth Lanzinger Housing Capital: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on a Multifaceted Resource 1 Margareth Lanzinger and Janine Maegraith Houses and the Range of Wealth in Early Modern Gender- and Intergenerational Relationships 14 Julia A. Schmidt-Funke Haushaben: Houses as Resources in Early Modern Frankfurt 35 Alice Detjen Transforming the House: The Photography of Julia Margaret Cameron 56 Monika Szczepaniak The Country House as a Transitory Locus for Soldiers in Polish Literature on the First World War 72 Uta Bretschneider New Farmsteads in the SOZ/GDR: Politicial Implications and Adaptation Processes 88 Jonathan Voges Maintaining, Repairing, Refurbishing: The Western German Do-it-Yourselfers and their Homes 109 Forum Manfred Sing Against All Odds: How to Re-Inscribe Islam into European History 129 List of Contributors 163 Simone Derix and Margareth Lanzinger Housing Capital: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on a Multifaceted Resource A House is more than just a House The house stands at the epicenter of current events, and to replace the word “house” with “real estate” is almost unavoidably to evoke a chain of associations linking houses with speculation, unsecured loans, and the most recent financial crises. Indeed, it has long been real estate that, again and again, acts as the focal point of financial bubbles and financial crises.1 On closer examination, and viewed from a buyer’s perspective, a real estate bubble – which may seem quite abstract at first glance – reveals itself to be a web of hopes and dreams coupled with the assessment of various risks. Which is to say: a house is always more than just a house. It is the dream of a place of one’s own, or of long-term financial security through home ownership. To facilitate its realization, various regional and country-specific forms of financing – a diverse array of models based on savings and credit – have been developed. And the dif- ferences between these explain, in turn, why Canadians and Americans generally purchase homes far earlier in life than do, for example, Germans.2 Housing as capital thus opens up insights into the parameters of individ- ual life opportunities as well as new perspectives on the material foundations of ways in which families live together. It does so in terms of imponderables that could see a house turned into a bankruptcy asset;3 when houses are sold at auction or have to be sold cheaply due to divorce, for example, they become pro- tagonists in stories of loss. Sawed-through kitchen furnishings and double beds likewise represent material manifestations of a kind of separation that affected 1 For analysis of the period between 1870 and the present based on data from 17 countries, see Òscar Jordà, Moritz Schularick and Alan M. Taylor: The Great Mortgaging. Housing Finance, Cri- ses and Business Cycles, in: Economic Policy 31, no. 85 (2016), 107–152. 2 The findings of an ING-DiBA-commissioned international comparative study done in 2012 by TNS indicated that the average age at which individuals purchased dwellings in Germany was 34, as opposed to 27 in Great Britain. The study itself cannot currently be accessed online, but a summary of its central findings can be found at URL: https://www.ing-diba.de/ueber-uns/presse/ pressemitteilungen/immobilien-erwerb-mama-und-papa-zahlen-haeufig-mit/ (4 Feb. 2017). 3 For findings in the case of Switzerland, see Mischa Suter: Rechtstrieb. Schulden und Vollstre- ckung im liberalen Kapitalismus 1800–1900. Konstanz 2016. DOI 10.1515/9783110532241-001, © 2017 Simone Derix and Margareth Lanzinger, published by De Gruyter. Die Online Ausgabe steht unter einer Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND Lizenz. 2 Simone Derix and Margareth Lanzinger not only relationships but also houses, which can always be viewed as ensem- bles of various things.4 In situations such as these, albeit not only these, the social dimension of houses as capital comes into view. Houses are visible expressions of social status, professionalization, and social position, and in this sense embody a representa- tive resource – both in individual résumés as well as for the standing of families in an intergenerational sense. As commercial offices, workshops, retail establish- ments, and storage spaces, as places of medical and legal practice, as agricultural properties, etc., they served and continue to serve as means of production, as places of work, and as a basis for the calculation of taxes and other levies. Conversely, houses can generate not only social but also material capital for their owners if they are rented out, leased, or sold. They are simultaneously involved in broader economic logics and processes as investment objects and loan collateral. They can be a sign of upward and downward social mobility, as well as points of departure or return. So it is in numerous senses that houses represent an essential resource. In recent times, houses’ potential as objects of scholarly study has been demonstrated anew. Since its establishment in 1986, the journal Housing Studies – focused on the analysis of present-day phenomena – has grown into a central forum for house-related research in the fields of urban studies, political science, sociology, law, and geography. Since 2012, there has been a handbook that summarizes central approaches and findings in this area of research.5 Recent years have also seen historians devote increased attention to trans-epochal and interdisciplinary research on houses. On this, as well, there is now a handbook ( published in 2015) that bundles the central perspectives of European research with a focus running from the early modern period to the nineteenth century.6 4 Since as early as the Middle Ages, the German language has contained the expression ( originally derived from a shame sanction) “cut up the tablecloth,” referring to the act of ending a friendship or to the dissolution of a social group. Before this backdrop, houses and household items cut in half by couples in the context of divorces have a long tradition; see Nach der Scheidung: Paar zersägt Haus in zwei Teile, in: B.Z., 10 Oct. 2008; Olivia B. Waxman: This German Man Gave His Ex Literally Half of All Their Possessions, in: TIME, 19 June 2015, URL: http://time. com/3928145/german-man-divorce-ebay-video-half/ (4 Feb. 2017). 5 See David F. Clapham, William A. V. Clark and Kenneth Gibb (eds.): The SAGE Handbook of Housing Studies. London 2012. 6 One can refer here to the annual conferences of the working group “Haus im Kontext. Kommu- nikation und Lebenswelt,” (“Contextualizing the House. Communication and Lifeworld”) which formed in 2008 at the initiative of Inken Schmidt-Voges and Joachim Eibach. For interim findings from this multi-year exchange, see: Joachim Eibach and Inken Schmidt-Voges (eds.) Das Haus in der Geschichte Europas. Ein Handbuch. Berlin 2015. Housing Capital: Interdisciplinary Perspectives 3 “Housing capital” refers first of all (in the sense of Pierre Bourdieu) to the exchangeability of various sorts of capital linked to the house. The house is thus examined as economic capital, albeit not exclusively in the sense of an object whose value is determined in a marketplace via the mechanism of price discovery.7 The present special issue also illuminates the house as something that is a store of value (hopefully) as well as an investment object, a complex interchange of related rights and obligations, and a resource via which to situate individual persons and groups in a given society. The house affords people a place in a neighborhood, a community, a region, and a (nation-)state, and it in turn allows them to be found by such entities in various ways. We thus turn our gaze onto the house as a material resource in the economic sense while at the same time shedding light on its integrally linked significance as a social, political, and sym- bolic resource. Precisely the fact that the house represents a resource in such diverse ways gives rise to ever-new constellations in which one can analyze the specific latitudes for action linked with the house-as-capital at various times and in various geographic settings. The German term Vermögen,8 in contrast to the English term “capital,” implies precisely this linkage of material resource and latitude for action. For Vermögen can denote not only assets, but also the oppor- tunity and/or ability to do something.9 With this in mind, the present special issue thus presents exemplary approaches and perspectivizations – ones that we believe might be especially productive for future research and that we would now like to briefly sketch.