Two postdoctoral positions have just been opened at the University Trento for a post-doc researcher to work, together with Paolo Boccagni, in a MUR-PRIN funded project on Unveiling the social lives of shared housing between strangers in Italy (SHARE_DIV). Applications are welcome from researchers from across social sciences, ideally with a strong ethnographic background. Each position is 16 months long. More info and online application: https://lavoraconnoi.unitn.it/assegni-di-ricerca/dipartimento-di-sociologia-e-ricerca-sociale-bando-di-selezione-il-conferimento-di-n-2-assegni-di

More info on SHARE_DIV:

Why do people that are mutually strangers live together, potentially for long, under the same roof? What makes their dwelling experience ‘successful’ or not, and what broader societal questions does it show and redefine, e.g. in terms of inequality and discrimination in housing markets and pathways? These are emerging research and policy questions at the intersection of housing, home and social welfare studies. Shared housing among strangers is an understudied configuration of the housing market in Italy, likely relevant both for its reach and its biographical implications. It may be driven by market dynamics, or by policy and grassroots solidarity initiatives. It may be a second-best or even an emergency option, possibly after a biographical rupture, or a deliberately chosen one. What are the key commonalities and societal implications across its different drivers and temporalities? What factors shape everyday boundary-making and home-making under the same roof, depending on the quality of housing infrastructures, on the characteristics of local contexts and on intersectional and interpersonal encounters between diverse dwellers (in terms of age, gender, class, ethnicity, and life projects)? How do inequalities and vulnerabilities shape the shared experience of a house, and the opportunities to enter or leave it? And what is the role of local labour and housing markets, and of welfare policies and civil society initiatives, in accounting for the distribution, composition and sustainability of shared housing? On all these questions, little and sparse knowledge is available in the case of Italy. Against this background, Shared_Div aims to a comparative analysis of the social boundaries, material cultures and patterns of interaction that shape everyday life under the same roof, at micro level; of the interaction between shared housing and the external structure  of opportunity, including place-specific forms of sociability, at meso level; of the potential and limitations of this housing configuration to address emerging housing needs, and the role of competing actors and stakeholders in orienting it, at macro level. Working across these analytical levels, Shared_Div combines multi-sited in-depth fieldwork with a systematic exploration of the external determinants of shared housing, in critical conversation with housing, home, migration and local welfare studies. Based on a range of methodological options to capture local differences and the intersectional implications of dwellers’ backgrounds and housing pathways, Shared_Div will provide a sociologically thick account in two respects: the mechanisms shaping the lived experience of shared housing, and the prospects and dilemmas of local policy, market and civil society in coping with it. The project will enhance the theoretical and empirical understanding of shared housing in diversity, and will provide an evidence base for policy-making and service provision in local housing and welfare.