Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.5673/sip.60.2.5
Be Responsible, Stay at Home! Significance of Home for the Youth of Vukovar during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Mateo Žanić
; Institute of Social Science Ivo Pilar – Centre Vukovar, Croatia
Ivana Bendra
orcid.org/0000-0002-6592-1308
; Institute of Social Science Ivo Pilar – Centre Vukovar, Croatia
Ines Milanković
Abstract
After the COVID-19 pandemic broke out and numerous measures restricted our movement,
investigation of the relation between home and living conditions gained more importance.
This paper, on the example of young citizens of Vukovar, tries to find out what the youth consider
their home and how the pandemic influenced the way a residential unit is used. We used
semi-structured interviews to conduct the research, and altogether twenty interviewees, aged
18 to 30, participated. The conducted thematic analysis resulted in two themes being recognized:
General attitudes toward the living situation and The transformation of the living situation
after the breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It showed that the research population associates home firstly with ownership relations, social
relations, and feelings. In short, young people want to have their own place, live independently
from their parents, and feel safe.
The results also showed that the pandemic, in different ways, influenced the way young people
use the objects they live in. The differences existed in the way they use their free time, in their
relationship with the people they live with, as well as their work habits and obligations. Those
changes are a part of the concept of reality inversion negotiations, which points to the activity
re-structuring that happened within the residential unit and outside of it. We concluded that
the residential unit transformation greatly contributed to the understanding of the way young
people reacted to the measures of movement restrictions, and the pandemic in general.
Keywords
Home; housing; youth; Vukovar; reality inversion negotiations; COVID-19 pandemic; qualitative research
Hrčak ID:
285801
URI
Publication date:
17.11.2022.
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