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London and the Southeast of England is home to an alternative community of people called 'boaters': individuals and families who live on narrowboats, cruisers and barges, along a network of canals and rivers. Many of these people move from place to place every two weeks due to mooring rules and form itinerant communities in the heart of some of the UK’s most built-up and expensive urban spaces. Boaters of London is an ethnography that delves into the process of becoming a boater, adopting an alternative lifestyle on the water and the political impact that this travelling population has on the state.
“This is a persuasive, evocative and fascinating anthropology of boaters in London. Bowles has presented a complex work of an often-elusive group of people; it is beautifully structured so that the reader can easily follow the arguments and ethnographic details without getting lost.” • Emma Crewe, SOAS, University of London
“It deals with an interesting topic that has not previously been much examined, and in that sense, I think readers will find this book fresh and engaging.” • Veronica Strang, University of Oxford
Ben Bowles is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at SOAS, University of London. He is also Course Lecturer at Fordham University, London Campus, and Research Fellow at the Open University's Centre for Policing Research and Learning.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. Methodology and Ethics
Chapter 2. The Waterways: A Historical and Legal Framework
Chapter 3. Becoming a Boater: Developing Skills Within a Community of Practice
Chapter 4. Dwelling and Temporality
Chapter 5. Economic, Livelihood and Consumption
Chapter 6. Community
Chapter 7. ‘A Very English Kind of Anarchism’: Boaters as Citizens Within the State
Chapter 8. Surveillance and Security
Chapter 9. Political (Dis)Organisation
Conclusion: Messing about in Boats
Glossary and Acronyms
References
Index