The Second Home Owner in the European Periphery : Conceptual, Ethical and Fieldwork Problems'

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The Second Home Owner in the European Periphery
Conceptual, Ethical and Fieldwork Problems.

• Michael Ireland, University of Exeter
• Centre for Rural Policy Research
• Lucy Ellis, University College
• Plymouth St Mark St John,

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Introduction

• Undertaking ethnographic research on second
  homes and their owners can be described like
  walking on hot coals initially you will feel a
  burning heat, until you move beyond pain and
  consider the problem from and existential point
  of view.

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This paper explores the contribution that
anthropology can make to provide an ethnographic
profile of the second homeowners.
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Economic Environment for Second Homes in the
periphery of the European Union.

• The economic processes at work between new and
  old Europe are a replication of the established
  property market interactions that have taken
  place since the 1970s between the centre and
  periphery in the UK.
• At the heart of this process is tourism
  development stimulating the demand for second
  homes.

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Second Homes the Celtic Periphery of Europe
Concerns in Cornwall.

• Tourism development often has consequences for
  the social well being of the host communities
  reaching far beyond the economic gains claimed by
  politicians and policy makers.
• The following auto ethnography demonstrates the
  how local families living in Sennen Cove, West
  Cornwall cope with the growth of tourism and the
  associated demand for second homes.

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Table 1. Second Ownership compared with Average
House Prices for Cornwall.
(Source Research Information Unit, Cornwall
County Council.)
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Auto ethnography of the impact of tourism
accommodation on a Cornish woman and her
community - Sennen Cove, Cornwall

• The whole thing about second homes is quite
  interesting if you think about how things have
  evolved within the surviving original families,
  the families that three centuries ago started the
  occupational settlement with fishing.
• Its not about profit or accumulation of assets
  it's about keeping the status quo, keeping the
  faith and that precious link back into the deep
  past, the past that second home owners associate
  with their chocolate box conception of the
  place.

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And now, today we talk every day of tourism in
different shapes and forms

• You have this rich sense of history passed down
  and enormous pride in the attachment to the
  landscape sitting next to these people who have,
  like, plonked themselves down in the middle and
  superimposed themselves.

• Their contribution to the place is pretty much
  zero, in fact, its less than zero because one of
  the things they contribute is this awful
  blackness in the night. The complete lack of
  lights on in these houses. It's like the worst
  possible reminder of this state of decline .

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Discussion of Elliss Auto ethnography

• The focus' on the effects of tourism and second
  home development by Ellis in Sennen cove
  captures this duality in that the native eye is
  focused both through the specialist academic
  training brought to the field and by virtue of
  being born into it.
• Elliss auto ethnography demonstrates the unique
  insight the indigenous field worker can bring to
  our understanding of the true consequences of
  tourism development to peripheral communities

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Cultural impacts of Second Homes

• The presence of second homes functions to empower
  the local families who remain resistant to market
  forces.
• The indigenous people are said to have a rich
  sense of pride and history which is heightened by
  being surrounded by second homes
• In contrast the second home owner is believed to
  make like contribution to the life of the
  community and is a superimposition that is not
  welcomed.

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Ethical dilemmas of research on second homes and
their owners

• There are two issues that frame this discussion
  
• The view that we as social researchers should
  avoid direct criticism of the social actions of
  others, in this context second home owners
• And the constant questioning of the value
  position of the researcher.

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Who is the Second Home Owner?

• The aim would be to build sociology of the second
  home owner
• To include their interactions with local people.
• This approach would build a detailed picture of
  the circulation of goods and services in the
  formal and informal economies of communities
• And the role indigenous knowledge plays in
  influencing the local property market.

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The Palmer Family

• Mr Palmer is a property developer for
  self-catering holiday accommodation in Devon and
  Cornwall.
• The Palmers have been coming to Sennen Cove
  (first as second home owners) for about twenty
  years and now become local residents.
• The examination of ethnographic data that
  charts the strategies the Palmers adopt in an
  attempt to circumvent indigenous controls over
  the sale of property.

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Strategies to gain entry to the local property
market
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Discussion of the Strategies

• For developers like the Palmers, rejection by
  local communities is a price they are prepared to
  pay for profit.
• Their way of coping with rejection in one
  community is to turn attention to another.

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Discussion of Strategies

• The tenure of property gives identity and
  cultural continuity in communities like Sennen
  Cove.
• It is for this reason that main kin groups guard
  their inheritance.
• For the Palmers the ownership of property has a
  different meaning, it is a marker of success in
  the dominant capitalism economy.

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Misperceptions about Second Homes

• They (second home owners) had not idea at all
  that second homes were damaging to local
  communities, and their friends would be horrified
  to discover that was the case (Baines 2004).
• The lesson to be drawn from Baines experience
  with second homeowners is to beware of our own
  misperceptions that everyone knows and doesnt
  care (about second homes) most people may have no
  idea.

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Perceptions of Need

• In undertaking research on second homes, we have
  to be aware of different perceptions of need
• The need to some groups of local people who have
  no hope of tenure and no voice
• Contrasted with the second home owners need for
  an extension of their private space in which to
  spend time with their families, since their first
  home lifestyles prevent quality time
• (Ellis 2004).

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Conclusion

• The processes we have identified as operating in
  Cornwall are likely to be indicative of what is
  occurring or is likely to occur in rural and
  maritime communities in the periphery of the new
  Europe
• Especially in locations where property prices
  have a comparative economic advantage over their
  European urban centres.
• Tourism development linked to local property
  markets are often undertaken at the expense of
  establish communities.
• Research for this paper suggests that the
  consequences of such development is not well
  understood and merits detailed research.

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Research Agenda on Second Homes for New Europe

• The lessons learn from Cornwall offer a research
  agenda for European peripheral areas.
• For example, the mapping of second homes and
  other types of holiday accommodation against
  settlement type and the extent they are
  considered peripheral from an urban centre.
• This work could be paralleled with the
  construction of an income / house price ratio for
  the communities mapped, to quantify the problem.
• Quantification can only go so far!
• The research methodology needs to employ
  indigenous fieldworkers to write auto
  ethnographies of the communities in which they
  are embedded to gain insight into the local
  experience of tourism development