Model
Digital Document
Publisher
Florida Atlantic University
Description
With this thesis, I discuss the idea of domesticity and domestic space as both a goal and a marketable product. I do so by structuring my thesis in two parts. The first part is a literature review in which I critically discuss relevant sources concerning space and place in order to support my discussion of model homes as a marketing tool shaped by ideals of gender, family, and private space. The second part is an ethnographic photo essay and collection of flash ethnographic fiction pieces in which I present visual data collected onsite at Westlake, a new city of south Florida in which a website, sales center, and set of six model homes are the main sources of advertising for the company selling the homes. I also include six pieces of original ethnographic fiction to accompany the visuals of the six houses. I have chosen to do so in order to add a layer of understanding of the houses that is both critical of the materials produced by the company and supplemental to the lack of active material culture within the houses, as they are uninhabited.
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