“Cash the Equity and Realize Yourself”: an Anthropological Approach to House Values

Abstract

Abstract The article presents results from an anthropological research project on privately owned single family houses in Denmark. On the basis of ethnographic interviews and within a framework of anthropological theory it argues that an understanding of the equity or "free value" as the literal Danish translation of this economic term would be cannot be achieved without taking into consideration values attached to the house in a broad sense. People's choices about whether or not to realize the free value of the house by remortgaging are determined by many factors besides economic ones. Social values and obligations towards kin and other people are involved in such choices, and the article argues that anthropological theories on materiality, values and economics as embedded can contribute to a more holistic understanding of equity and the house as property and asset for middle class families. Key words: EquityEthnographySocial valuePropertyMateriality Notes 1. The ethnographic research was done within the framework of Centre for Housing and Welfare Realdania Research. I thank the researchers from different disciplines within the Centre for inspiration and good discussions, particularly Hans Kristensen. My two anthropological colleagues Mark Vacher and Maja Hojer have provided fine comments and criticisms, as have the two anonymous reviewers. 2. In Danish called samtalekøkken, which literally translates as "conversation kitchen". 3. In Denmark a significant number of TV programme deal with these issues in entertaining ways, e.g. when so-called life-style experts are asked to guess "who lives here" on the basis of the organization and interior design of the house. 4. The name "parcel" is derived from its spatial cutting out from former farmland. 5. Some of the people in this generation may very well be those who, when the economic crisis set in, were punished for their optimism – and the optimism of their banks – by ending up being technically insolvent, that is by being bound to their house, because its market price was lower than the loans they had taken. 6. All names are pseudonyms. 7. Continuation school is a translation of the Danish term efterskole. In the Danish education system, this is a preferred way of spending the last year of public school (10th class) before high school (gymnasium). It is subsidized by the government, but also has to be paid for. Continuation schools are boarding schools, and often placed in the countryside, many of them being specialized in sports, music, art or otherwise. 8. A recent attempt to identify patterns of values, beliefs and attitudes is found in Gundelach, Iversen & Warburg (Citation2008). The conclusion here is that there are seven mental patterns that characterize contemporary Danes: being pleased with Denmark; safety, confidence, happiness and (self)control; collectively oriented individualism; freedom, equality and a slight scepticism toward (political) power; community and differences; "to be oneself"; and finally the possibility of being Danish in several ways. I have certain reservations about this kind of specification, but I welcome the attempt to identify values in a different way than current political ones, which seem to relate all talk about "Danish values" to the perceived threat of multiculturalism. 9. For many families, separation would mean parting with the house, since few can afford the mortgages on one income (Gram-Hanssen & Bech-Danielsen Citation2008). 10. Kinship matters in modern Danish society, although in less obvious ways than in pre-modern kinship-based societies. The role of kin in people's lives is vividly demonstrated in research on involuntarily childless couples. The wish to have one's own biological offspring shows that kinship is decisive for a feeling of continuity and attachment, and for life progression and identity (Tjørnhøj-Thomsen Citation2004:150).