A research team from the University of Kent is holding a community workshop in Cliftonville tomorrow (October 15) to hear people’s experiences of home during the pandemic.
The team, headed by architecture lecturer Dr Ambrose Gillick, launched a survey in the Summer asking people in Margate, particularly the Dalby Square area, about how their home lives changed over the last year and a half, and how-or if- they had been affected by the lockdowns.
The team now want to meet people during the workshop at St Paul’s Church in Northdown Road which will be running from 10am until noon and then 2.30pm to 4.30pm.
Dr Gillick said: “Themes we are interested in are how people used their homes and how this might have changed during lockdown and how they are now remaking their homes after the lockdowns.
“In February 2020 everything was going on as usual and then it all changed with covid, people having to use their homes as workplaces and schoolrooms and care units.
“It changed for people who would go to a mental health appointment and then found that they were having to do this in their own home, life changed in subtle but profound ways.
“We are interested in how people interacted with services, like police, housing, local authorities and health services. How people experienced these changes is very different to how local authorities did. Did authorities pick up on how people felt.
“We are also interested in how eating habits changed and how people managed their social life and how they are going about that now.
“The last thing we are really interested in is the overall issue of security, did people feel secure in their homes, not just safety but also in their tenure. There was a ban on evictions but there were a number of people in Dalby Square who moved during the pandemic.”
The research project – Making, Unmaking and Remaking Home in Lockdown Margate – aims to look at the social, cultural and domestic changes of home life during Covid-19.
Find more about the project, and the survey, at https://research.kent.ac.uk/dalbysquare/
