#12618. Between field and home: notes from the balcony

October 2026publication date
Proposal available till 22-05-2025
4 total number of authors per manuscript0 $

The title of the journal is available only for the authors who have already paid for
Journal’s subject area:
Cultural Studies;
Geography, Planning and Development;
Environmental Science (miscellaneous);
Places in the authors’ list:
place 1place 2place 3place 4
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Abstract:
Balconies, windows and terraces have come to be identified as spaces with newfound meaning due to the Covid-19 pandemic and concomitant lockdowns. There was not only a marked increase in the use of these spaces, but more importantly a difference in the very nature of this use. It is keeping this latter point in mind, that I make an attempt to understand the spatial mobilities afforded by the balcony in the area of ethnographic research. The street overlooking my balcony is one of my field sites, is composed of middle and lower-middle class residents, dairy farms and farmers, and bovines. In this note, through ethnographic observations, I reflect upon the balcony as constituting that liminal space between ‘field’ and ‘home’, as well as, as a spatial framing device which conditions and affects our observations and interactions. This is explored by examining two elements – the gendered nature of the space, and the notion of ‘distance and proximity’, through personal narratives of engaging-with the field, and subjects-objects of study in the city.
Keywords:
balcony; ethnography; gender; liminal; mobilities; more-than-human; space

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