Observing and Commenting on Clients’ Home Environments in Mobile Support Home Visit Interactions: Institutional Gaze, Normalization and Face-work

Abstract

The study contributes to discursive and interactional housing and home studies by analysing home visit conversations with clients who need support with their housing and living in the community. It focuses on the ways in which professionals comment on clients’ home environments. The data, which consist of 20 audio-recorded home visits in Mobile Support directed at mental health and substance abuse rehabilitees, are analysed by applying the Foucauldian concepts of practices, normalization and inspecting gaze, Goffman’s idea on face-work and the ethnomethodologically oriented research on the meanings of spaces in interactions. Five ways of using inspecting gaze are identified: pointing out, criticizing, giving advice, displaying concern and complimenting. The study provides a critical reflective basis for assessing the “soft” use of interactional power in clients’ homes at a time when the provision of services in private home spaces is on the increase.