Vacation Homes, Enchanted Family Memories and Inequalities

Sociologist Michelle Janning, PhD, will present research findings from her new book, Investing in Enchantment: Memory, Market, and the Family Vacation Home. She will discuss how family vacation homes are a compelling site to examine social roles, relationships and — most important — social inequalities. She'll delve into how homeowners frame the image of “ideal” neighbors as a moral exercise that reinforces second homeownership as a privilege. Janning will also discuss how structural inequalities along race and class lines are hidden in strategic reframing of property as “magical.”

 

Janning, a professor of sociology and the Raymond and Elsie Gipson DeBurgh Endowed Chair of Social Sciences at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, is also the co-director of Whitman’s new Human-Centered Design program. Her research focuses on the intersections between material and spatial culture and social roles, relationships, and inequalities — with particular emphasis on stories found in families, neighborhoods and schools.

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