``Staged for Living'': Negotiating Objects and their ... · 36 “Staged for Living”: Negotiating Objects and their Values over a Porous Boundary EUNJEONG CHEON, Indiana University

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“Staged for Living”: Negotiating Objects and their Valuesover a Porous Boundary

EUNJEONG CHEON, Indiana University Bloomington, USANORMAN MAKOTO SU, Indiana University Bloomington, USA

We describe more than 19 months of ethnographic fieldwork with people who have embraced minimalism,a lifestyle movement focused on reducing modern life’s clutter. We found that for minimalists, the home isa central but porous site for making and staging their values around objects. The home’s porous boundaryallows minimalists to reinforce their values around objects for others and themselves, but it also necessitatesadopting strategies to assert their values when objects—entangled with others’ values—move in and out theboundaries of the home. Drawing from our fieldwork, we introduce the concept of the porous boundary.“Porosity” impels us to consider the coupling of objects with values as we do boundary practices for thehome. A porous boundary perspective, we argue, can open new design spaces in the development of noveltechnologies for the home.

CCS Concepts: •Human-centered computing→Human computer interaction (HCI);Computer sup-ported cooperative work;

Additional Key Words and Phrases: Minimalism, home, domestic, objects, value negotiation, boundary, valuesensitive design, subcultures

ACM Reference Format:EunJeong Cheon and Norman Makoto Su. 2018. “Staged for Living”: Negotiating Objects and their Valuesover a Porous Boundary. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 2, CSCW, Article 36 (November 2018), 24 pages.https://doi.org/10.1145/3274305

1 INTRODUCTIONMinimalism is an alternative lifestyle movement whose practitioners, minimalists, seek to reducemodern life’s clutter. This ethos of living with less is not new—minimalism in various guises havesporadically re-emerged and gained popularity. It is a hallmark of philosophies and virtues in manyAsian religions, including Buddhism and Taoism. During the 20th century, American essayist andphilosopher, Henry David Thoreau, detailed living simply in his book Walden. Richard Gregg [31],a social philosopher, advocated for what he called “a voluntary simplicity movement.” Recently, twoself-proclaimed American minimalists [59] have been particularly prominent figures in helping tolabel and spread the minimalist movement globally. As of 2018, more than 554,000 people havefollowed their Facebook page and subscribed to their website (https://www.theminimalists.com/).Certainly, minimalism is not limited to the US. In Japan, South Korea, and France, similar minimalistgroups (e.g., Zen Buddhism [84], Capsule Wardrobe [57]) have moved into the spotlight. Despitetheir different forms (e.g., as religion, social movement, or alternative lifestyle), all share a centralAuthors’ addresses: EunJeong Cheon, School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indiana University Bloomington,Bloomington, IN, USA, [email protected]; Norman Makoto Su, Indiana University Bloomington, School of Informatics,Computing, and Engineering, Bloomington, IN, USA, [email protected].

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Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., Vol. 2, No. CSCW, Article 36. Publication date: November 2018.

https://doi.org/10.1145/3274305

https://www.theminimalists.com/

https://doi.org/10.1145/3274305

36:2 E. Cheon & N. M. Su

practice: re-evaluating what we possess with the goal of having less and eventually pursuing otherlife goals that they consider more important (e.g., spending more time with family, developing newskills). However, we caution that there is no single definition or source for minimalism [40]. Wealso focus on minimalism as a lifestyle, although we acknowledge that minimalist “thinking” haspervaded other arenas (e.g., interaction design [14]).The idea of minimalist living encompasses contemporary concerns of HCI and CSCW such as

sustainability, eco-feminism, and civic movement. From our initial investigations, we found thatminimalists constantly question whether an object is valuable to their lives, reflect on decluttering,and iteratively reconstruct their home spaces [16]. Yet, minimalists do not live in isolation—theynegotiate with others over their own transition to a minimalist lifestyle. Decluttering and down-sizing also provide an opposing yet fruitful perspective to past CSCW studies [65, 85] by framingquestions in terms of why people reject, rather than keep, objects. Additionally, minimalist livinghas mainstream appeal; aspects of minimalism can be found in popular self-help styled books [48].Hence, we found that minimalists are an information-rich case for not only understanding howpeople judge their material possessions [85] but also the relationship of their objects to theirhome, others, and society [71, p.169]. As with previous studies [34, 52, 54, 82, 93, 94] on specializedgroups, we believe that minimalist values and lifestyle—people especially attuned to objects andvalues—could offer a valuable insight into design spaces for us all.

In this paper, we draw on more than 19 months of ethnographic work studying minimalistsas a case study [25]. We define “minimalist living” or “minimalist practices” as a set of identified,common practices labeled as such by our informants who describe themselves as minimalists; asour findings will show, many interpret and appropriate minimalism in their own, varied terms. Wewill describe how the domestic place played a significant role as an anchor for our informants’values. Hence, our work builds upon past work [47] on the contested values of the home whilealso asking [19]:“[W]hat have we overlooked when we talked about the home?” More specifically,our research is concerned with how objects, practices, and values are intertwined with the home,how alternative lifestyles of the home provide new insight into how members of subcultures assert,protect, and integrate their values with others, and finally, how such insights provide a fruitful lensinto traditional and more radical views of the home. The new perspectives on the practices andvalues around the non-computational objects of minimalists have the potential to offer insights onhow computing may play a role in both objects and the spaces they occupy.Our paper makes three main contributions. First, we provide an empirical account of the mini-

malist subculture. Minimalists see the home as the primary site for reinventing themselves. It isthrough the home that minimalists curate objects and spaces to reify their values. Minimalists alsointegrate and influence others while negotiating the values of objects entering and leaving theirhome. Second, grounded in our findings, we suggest an alternative concept of the home as one witha porous boundary that acknowledges the interaction and the “leaks” (intended or not) between thehome and the outside. On first glance, the concept of porous boundary may seem an intuitivelyobvious phenomenon; however, if developed as a theoretical contribution [91], we posit it providesa constructive lens for CSCW on the home. Porous boundaries posit a tight relation of objects withvalues and that our practices with objects should be seen with respect to place—in our case, thehome. More specifically, porous boundaries draw our attention to how the border makes one placedistinct from the other, the mobility of objects and the fragility of their ties with values betweenspaces, and the collaborative processes of creating and reinforcing the porous boundary. Finally,we sketch out how porous boundaries suggest promising, alternative design spaces for the home.


“Staged for Living”: Negotiating Objects and their Values over a Porous Boundary 36:3

2 RELATEDWORK2.1 Values in the Traditional Home and Beyond in CSCWStudies of domestic environments have become a central focus of CSCW. Here, we first summarizehow studies of the home in CSCW often focus on what we call the “traditional home” and itsdynamics and values. This focus sees the home as separate from the workplace, as a space forfamilies to enjoy group activities, and as a safe and comfortable space. We then identify areasin which CSCW has gone beyond this traditional viewpoint. We see our own work as buildingupon traditional views of the home as well as providing an alternative perspective on the home.Minimalists do not outright reject all tenets of the traditional home, but they do provide a perspectivethat is itself critical of the traditional home.First, the traditional home is set apart from the workplace [46, 53, 68]. Hindus [38] further

underpinned this contrast by emphasizing that a family is not an organization, and family membersare not knowledge workers. Families have different sets of values from those in the workplaces(e.g., productivity and efficiency [27]). For example, in contrast with the workplace, Gaver [27]highlighted the home as a place for ludic technologies to support fun and creativity.Second, the traditional home is a place for families [34, 61, 85, 89] to engage in collaborative

activities. This work often examines how a family adapts to or uses a particular technology orprototype, such as video-mediated communication technologies [4, 46], archiving devices [47],gaming systems [35], home networking devices [32], or family health monitors [7]. These studiesfocus on the overall home or certain areas (e.g., kitchen [69], wardrobe [23], bowls and drawers [85])that are shared among family members. Some studies have focused on everyday use of householdartifacts [87] by noting sequences of actions [18] when using a certain technological device athome. Hupfeld and Rodden [41] investigated books as domestic objects and the wide range oftheir practices within four major dimensions—temporal, spatial, material and social—to identifydesign opportunities for future e-books. Taylor and Swan [88] kept track of families’ to-do liststo see how they arranged various family members’ household chores and individual activities.Vyas et al. [90] also examined families’ calendars and noticeboards to examine their financialmanagement. Håkansson and Sengers [34] focused on overall uses of ICT among simple livingfamilies to gain design insights for sustainable HCI. Many of these studies highlight the importanceof understanding mundane activities and household routines [18]. Although these studies do notexplicitly identify values of the home, they nonetheless suggest that the traditional home is a placeto support smooth family collaboration and planning.

Lastly, the traditional home is a safe and comfortable place—a place that has the opposite attributesof a hospital or professional healthcare setting [7, 33, 70]. For example, Palen and Aaløkke [70]studied older adults’ homes to design domestic technologies to support reliable medication. Theresearchers carefully consider familiar places in home (e.g., kitchen shelf) and daily routine (e.g.,meal times) to create adaptable health care practices in the home.

Although the traditional home has been emphasized in CSCW, social science and anthropologyhave had a long interest in expanding the meaning of the home [8, 27, 62]. For example, Garvey [27]shows how home decorations for low-income workers serve as a channel for self-presentation. Thehome serves as “a place of public exhibition of the tastes and values of the householders livingthere,” or a place where householders may “stamp their character upon the house and activelymake it their home” [63, p.257]. In line with this, HCI researchers [19] have recently proposed anew research perspective to move away from adhering to current dominant views (e.g., authorinterpreter or anthropocentric view).Work in CSCW and HCI has started to go beyond the traditional aspects of the home, such

as religious practices [95], conflicts between landlord and tenant regarding over energy use [21],



domestic network traffic records [12], privacy issues [73], emergency situations [24], and homeentertainment [67] in domestic environments. Alternative forms of the home have also beenexplored in the context of mobile lifestyles [58, 72], moving into a smaller home or a care home [51],and alternative housing [20, 43], illustrating how diverse research approaches and angles canproduce rich meanings of the home.

Desjardins et al. [19] conducted a critical review of 121 works on the home in HCI and identifiedseven genres of domestic research. Our work is broadly aligned with the contested values of a homegenre since it uncovers alternative configurations that “go beyond the traditional meaning of thehome” and “common assumptions about what the home is” [19]. It also is aligned with the homeas a site for interpretation in that it considers the home as a site for reflecting upon objects andtheir values. Finally, this study can be seen in light of two future perspectives on the home thatDesjardins et al. [19] advocate: the material and first person perspective. Our work overlaps withthe material perspective by centering the crucial role of (material) objects in reifying the valuesof minimalists in the spheres of their daily lives. The first-person view argues for the benefits ofcapturing how the self experiences and interprets the home; in particular, this viewpoint highlightsthe need to understand how the home is a site for both multiple meanings and experiences. Wedo not claim our work neatly fits within these genres and/or two perspectives, but we do findinspiration in the trajectory of home-situated research suggested by Desjardins et al. [19]. Ourstudy aims to build on current studies of domestic life in CSCW by providing an additional, uniqueperspective of the home as a site for value negotiation through individuals adopting an alternative,nontraditional values, objects, and practices in pursuit of the minimalist movement.

2.2 Cherished Objects in the HomeStudies have investigated the values people attribute to the cherished objects of their home [60].Notably, Odom and his colleagues researched what leads people to keep or discard objects in theirhome to inform the design of durable technologies to which people could grow strongly attached.The authors identified four dimensions informing the relationship between owner and object:engagement, histories, augmentation, and perceived durability [65]. Based on these dimensions,the study analyzed various household objects that participants brought up during interviews attheir home. Furthermore, the research team focused on understanding how participants’ perceptionof the objects they were most strongly attached to changed over time [64]. One study analyzingcherished objects in teenagers’ bedrooms focused on virtual objects—for example, how they werestored, displayed, and managed [66]. They identified spaces in which values could be created:through rich metadata, control across places, and as tools of presenting self. By examining thepatterns of how people perceived their meaningful objects in the home, Miller [60] presents designimplications for managing digital objects in more sustainable ways. Bales and Lindley [5] considerimportant life transitions, such as leaving home for college. They identified how physical (e.g.,pipe statues, baskets) and digital objects (e.g., Facebook photos) allow high school graduates tofeel a sense of connection to the home. Specifically, the authors focused on a set of practices withparticipants’ meaningful objects (e.g., moving, placing, sorting, and deleting objects in their newliving place or digital space) and how these practices made their objects more meaningful.

Beside personal objects at home, objects shared among family members have also been examined.Oftentimes, values of the objects were not only associated with the self but with family membersand memories [47]. Several studies [44, 45] have investigated how families curate and interactwith their collective memories through physical objects to seek ways in which technologies couldsupport archiving shared memories. They noticed that an object that elicited memories sometimescaused tensions when family members had conflicting memories about that object [45]. In anotherstudy [44], the authors looked at how people “declutter” their excessive objects and, particularly,



Fig. 1. Fieldwork (left to right): tiny house roadshow with minimalists Meet-up members, Jars for zero wastepractices (consisting of 6-months of trash at P22’s house), tool library that West-coast Meet-up members usefor minimalist living

what challenges may exist when dealing with their sentimental objects. The study identified severalpatterns of curating a large collection of personal objects at home called the “curation regime” anddiscussed how to apply these patterns to building and designing digital collections. In a similarvein, Swan et al. [85] focused on the ways families contain and classify clutter. They found thatidiosyncratic ways of dealing with clutter allowed families to create their own unique vision of thehome.This past work has highlighted the meaningful objects of the home and how people have

perceived, managed, curated, and shared them with others. Like our minimalists, cherished objectsare an important way to signal one’s identity. Our findings expand on these studies by detailinghow people judge the value of the objects in the home, and—importantly—how the very judgmentof value itself becomes a point of tension in and outside the home in establishing and assertingone’s identity.

3 METHODOLOGYWe draw on more than 19 months (July 2016 to March 2018) of ethnographic fieldwork at multiplesites: five online communities on minimalist living, three offline local minimalist Meetup groups inthe US, and miscellaneous minimalist events and places including a tiny house roadshow and atool-lending library. Data from our fieldwork included participant observations at those multiplesites and 23 semi-structured interviews. Field work was conducted by the first author, and allauthors were involved in planning and analyzing the data.

3.1 Initial EngagementWe familiarized ourselves with the minimalist movement by observing and participating in two ofthe largest closed and open online minimalism living Facebook groups (9,151 and 139,815 members,respectively, as of March 2018), and three local minimalist Meetup groups—one on the West Coast(855 members) and two in the Midwest (482 and 956 members, each). When observing online groups,we took notes and archived particularly interesting questions and pictures posted to the forums. Wealso posted requests for books or documentaries for those new to minimalism. In this engagement,we gained fluency in their language and identified broad practices among minimalists [10]. Forexample, many of them shared pictures of their de-cluttering process at home. We found thatminimalists also often pursued other alternative lifestyles such as the Tiny House (living simplyin a smaller but more efficient space) and Zero Waste movement (living with fewer items andproducing less waste) in Fig. 1. Finally, we also frequently encountered online articles and videoclips featuring minimalists in Asian countries—minimalism has a wide following, particularly inKorea and Japan.



These initial engagements withminimalist Meetup groups led us to their monthly offlinemeetingsas well as local, informal gatherings. From September 2016 toMarch 2018, we attended sevenMeetupgroup meetings. We disclosed our intentions with Meetup leaders in advance, and during meetings,we introduced ourselves as researchers. Through these participant observations, we could buildrapport with members of the local Meetup groups; they proved invaluable for recruiting minimalistsfrom the online community [13] and offline meetings [37]. Our field notes and archival materials(e.g., brochures and pamphlets) were also included to aid our analysis of interview data later.

3.2 Participants Recruitment and InterviewsWe conducted semi-structured interviews with 23 adult minimalists (18 females and 5males, rangingin their late 20s to early 50s)—20 participants in the US and three in Korea. Even though thereis—to the best of our knowledge—no official data about the gender makeup of minimalists, we didobserve that most participants in offline Meetup meetings were female. We did not find significantdifferences between female and male minimalist interviews. We do not have precise informationabout our informants’ education or income level. However, based on their occupations (cf. Table 1)and neighborhood, we surmise that our participants are middle-class, which is a potential limitationof our study [4]. Participants’ level of engagement with minimalism varied: over years of practices,some participants adjusted minimalist practices (e.g., how much and often they will downsize)within their comfort zone while some went to the extreme (e.g., throwing out a rolling pin upondiscovering they can use a tin can to flatten dough, moving to a smaller house to progress as aminimalist).Participants in the US were recruited from three Meetup groups located in two Midwest cities

(N=13), one Meetup group in a West Coast city (N=6), and via a Facebook group for minimalists(N=1). Interviews lasted 1.5 hours on average (min = 50 min, max = 3.5 hrs). Interviews often tookplace before or after Meetup meetings; otherwise, we conducted interviews at places participantssuggested, such as cafes and public libraries. One minimalist Meetup leader invited us to a hometour. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed for later analysis.After noting a number of references to East Asian minimalists during our initial engagements,

we also recruited three people well-known in the Korean minimalist community–a book author, ablogger, and a community leader—via their email contact information found on their blogs or onlinecommunities. The first author, a native Korean speaker, conducted these face-to-face interviews;they were transcribed and translated to English for open coding. In this paper, we did not findnoticeable cultural differences in our data with respect to their minimalist values and practices.Instead, we found mostly shared codings between our Korean and US informants. This commonalitymay be because US and Korean minimalists rely on the same information sources for minimalism(e.g., particular blogs, podcasts, and books) and share similar ancillary interests (e.g., sustainableliving, fair trade). Therefore, we will not differentiate Korean versus US participants.The interview protocol began with background on participants’ motivations and strategies for

adopting and learning minimalism. This was followed with questions on their routines, habits,possessions, relationships, and community interactions as minimalists. Following some interviews,we amended our interview protocols to focus on how minimalists changed various aspects of theirlives. We ceased conducting interviews upon reaching data saturation with our analysis.

3.3 Data AnalysisOur research team held meetings on a weekly basis and exchanged thoughts to identify emergingthemes based on the collected data—observations and interviews. Following the grounded theoryapproach [15], all authors individually coded all the data with the ATLAS.ti qualitative data analysissoftware. In total, we generated 436 codes from open coding, which were narrowed down to a



ID Neighborhood Occupation Years Practicing Minimalism

P1 Midwest City 1 Self-employed 3.5

P2 Midwest City 1 NGO worker 6

P3 Midwest City 1 Professional organizer 20

P4 Midwest City 1 Pilot 3

P5 Midwest City 1 Airline worker 3.5

P6 South Korea Self-employed 2

P7 South Korea Teacher for public elementary school

4

P8 South Korea University staff 2.5

P9 West Coast Architecture designer 10

P10 Midwest City 2 Art teacher for elementary school

1

P11 Midwest City 2 Part-time worker 3.5

P12 Midwest City 2 Software technician 3.5

P13 Midwest City 2 Municipal official 4

P14 Midwest City 2 Teacher for secondary school

1

P15 Midwest City 2 Full-time office worker 1.5

P16 Midwest City 2 Professional organizer 3.5

P17 Midwest City 2 Software Engineer 1

P18 West Coast City 1 PhD student in health care system

6

P19 West Coast City 1 Professional organizer 3.5

P20 West Coast City 1 Freelance translator 3

P21 West Coast City 1 Biologist 2.5

P22 West Coast City 1 Retiree 3.5

P23 West Coast City 1 Freelancer 11

Table 1. Minimalist Demographics: Neighborhood, Occupation, and Experience

few major themes or parent codes. Axial coding and labeling of major themes were facilitatedthrough affinity diagramming. For example, data coded as values, one of our parent codes, wereclassified into 29 sub-themes (e.g., threaten others’ value, prioritize their own value over otherpeople’s values, human interaction is more valued). In total, we created 27 parent codes and 118



subcodes. Our analyses was iterative: we continually went back and forth between our codings anddata to update, refine, and reflect upon the practices and values of minimalists.

4 FINDINGSThe home serves as the main staging ground to demonstrate and represent values and practiceswith their objects to visitors. We will discuss how minimalists invent and reinvent their values viaobjects and space in the home. We then will describe how minimalists “protect” their home’s valuesthrough concerns and practices over objects; namely, to pragmatically deal with value tensions,minimalists negotiate with non-minimalists. Lastly, we discuss how minimalists interact to preservetheir values outside the home with objects.

4.1 Home Sweet Home: A Place for (Re)Inventing ValuesMany of our participants fortuitously stumbled into the minimalist movement after learning aboutit from popular media or friends. Yet, to be a true minimalist requires more than reading about it.The values of minimalism emphasize that these values must be put into practice. Only then can onelabel themselves as a minimalist or, at the very least (many of our informants said there is no finalstate of minimalism that could be reached), a practitioner of minimalism. All participants reportedthat, through the minimalist movement, they gained the sensitivity and practices to think aboutwhat “things” in their lives were most important and how to judge that importance. We arguethat the home is a key site for value invention and reinvention. Moreover, minimalists, althoughindependent, are certainly not hermits—values are not done in a vacuum but rather sometimesdespite or with others in the home.To set the stage, it is important to understand what minimalists do in the home. We will first

describe how practices that reify values revolve around objects and space. That is, these practices ofdeliberately choosing and thinking about objects and space in the home make the home internallyand externally a signifier for the values of minimalists.

4.1.1 Objects. For our informants, the home is the site for practicing minimalism. After makingthe decision to adopt the tenets of minimalist living, our participants first applied the principles andpractices of minimalism to their everyday objects and spaces at home. For instance, upon startingminimalism, many participants immediately came to realize how much “clutter” they had in theirhome. As two participants (P7,11) explained, before becoming minimalists, they were confidentthat their current practices already helped maintain a clean and tidy home. Yet, this confidencesoon dissipated after becoming minimalists. P7 illustrated how differently she began to perceiveand define “clutter”:

Before I learned about it [minimalism], I thought arranging, piling, and hiding representgood cleaning. I thought that’s how to live an organized life. But later I realized I wasliving in a bunch of garbage I don’t need. Back then, I was proud of it [my current housepractices], and I took pictures. But when I see it now, I can see all the stuff needed tobe recycled like plastic bottles, empty bottles and everything was piled.

P7 kept her recyclable bottles and arranged them in her kitchen, regardless of whether they wereactually going to be used. For her, well-organized objects did not count as clutter. Now de-clutteringto her is more than just good arrangement; it actually requires discarding objects.For participants, life as a minimalist is an ongoing process requiring careful examination of

one’s possessions and constant questioning and self-reflection. Participants commonly noted thatde-cluttering made them pay close attention to the individual objects they had at home, enablingthem to reevaluate the value of each object and decide whether such objects are really necessaryfor their lives.



Over the course of these careful considerations, participants describe having their eyes openedto a new relationship between objects and themselves (P5,6,8,18). For example, P18 mentioned howshe felt a kind of moral influence from her objects which compelled her to maintain relationshipswith them: “You know sometimes things have that kind of emotional pull on me, and I really need toevaluate and heal that to have a different relationship with all of the objects in my life.” She confidedto us that she had an awful experience on her clothes, reminiscent of her mother and a feeling ofanger. But, she added, she has healed this anger by changing her perspectives on objects.Further, we found that this new sensitivity to objects was gradually cultivated by minimalists

through the de-cluttering processes. For example, P6 explained that his careful selection of objectsallowed him to value the few objects he had decided to keep even more; every individual objecthad been made special in his life: “Now that I have fewer things, the remaining stuff is something Itry to use and feel worthwhile. And everything I [own] now is something I love. So I enjoy using thembecause I carefully picked every single one of them.” No remaining object is superfluous.Participants commented that they could now articulate which objects they favored in terms of

specific ”feelings” toward their objects (e.g., anxiety about objects, feeling burdened by, or freebecause of the objects). In another comment, P6 said, “I think I am more sensitive about the things inthe house and everything is becoming richer in every way. Being sensitive makes me find out whatI really need.” Due to his sensitivity to certain objects, P6 viewed that he now can dwell on hisfavorite objects in his home—making his home an enchanted world.

We now turn to describing how important space is to minimalists. Rather than regarding spaceas emptiness, minimalists made space a first-class, desirable “object” to consider in relation toeveryday objects.

4.1.2 Spaces. In addition to objects, participants also became more sensitive to spaces at home.This led to values that emphasized empty space which, to our minimalists, are often ignored. Goingthrough their possessions frequently, most participants came to recognize and appreciate emptyspaces at home (P4,6,7,9,13,19,20). They lauded empty spaces in the home, reporting that suchspaces create room for them to breathe and feel peaceful. Some participants further imbued emptyspaces with special significance because of the alluring possibilities for what the space could becomeor what it could hold. For example, P20 shared a cathartic moment of unexpectedly encounteringempty spaces: “it was funny because in my kitchen I realized that there was one cupboard that wasempty . . . Just the fact that I hadn’t even noticed that there was one big empty space in my kitchen, tome, was amazing . . . I totally find solace in space, empty space.”

Just as some show great care for their favorite objects, so, too, do several participants lavish careupon empty spaces. Minimalism has changed the ways they utilize these spaces. P9 designatesplaces for each of her objects. In particular, only valued objects are able to take up space on hercoffee table. During the interview, she showed us a special pocket she made that hangs off thetable; this pocket stores less valued objects like the TV remote control: “I tried to create differenttypes of spaces from what I had . . . That’s how I figure out what is important that I want to keep oncertain surfaces, and stuff that’s not important that I could put to the side or tuck away or somethinglike that.”

Like P9, participants try to figure out better ways to use spaces for objects that are most deservingof their own precious space. This sensitivity to spaces at home has also led minimalists to questionand redefine the conventional concept of a room. For instance, participants P9, 11, 12, and 20,explained that the living room could be a bedroom, and a dining room could be a work place.Minimalists need not be boxed into social conventions on dividing homes into rigid and set rooms.

4.1.3 Staging Values with Objects in the Home. We have set the stage by describing how thehome is the central site where participants express their minimalist values—a site to examine and



reduce possessions to redefine their living spaces. We now discuss how such constructions arenot private affairs. Rather, the space of the home is a social space in which values are espousedand demonstrated. This reinvention of the home is something other non-minimalists could visiblynotice. Participants’ homes served as showrooms for their values to outsiders. Thus, the home visitis a key event (P4,9,11,12,14,19,20,22) in which the values of minimalists are tangibly exposed tooutsiders who may hold different (often, in this case, mainstream) values.

Participants shared stories about these opportune moments. When exposed to their homes, ourminimalists related that visitors got a sense of what a minimalist home environment was, andmost responded positively (e.g., “oh wow, it’s so organized, and clean (P19).” ). P22 showed us herzero-waste jars (Figure 1) during a home tour. She described how her jars in the kitchen play a roleof promulgating her values:

The main way it [the jars] showed up is when I was first doing Airbnb. I didn’t sayI was vegan, and I didn’t say I was eco-conscious, and most of the time, I just rent aroom upstairs. I’m here, but occasionally, I would rent up the whole house. . . . I didput up this [a jar] thing that just said my trash project . . . You are the guests, you’reon vacation but just help me recycle so they at least know that this is of interest to me.Since then, I attract all these people who are very interested in these things [zero-wastepractices] now.

As a result of her gentle nudge, she successfully got her guests interested in continuing zero-wastepractices. In addition, P20 recalled a friend who commented, “Oh, there’s no décor. There’s nothingthat doesn’t have a purpose.” Even though visitors usually did not know that participants werepracticing minimalists, visitors could perceive that the home was somehow different from others.Participants considered the home itself an important reflection of their identity as minimalists.

P9 eloquently describes how an outsider might interpret the spaces of her home as representativeof herself, a minimalist: “I’m proud that my space represents who I am now. If someone, a completestranger, were to walk in this space, they could probably tell what kind of person I am. It’s almost likemy soul mirrors my living space... I’m very proud of the space I created.”Certainly, our participants were concerned about how the values displayed at home would be

seen as a reflection of themselves to others; this concern necessitated constant maintenance oftheir living spaces. P14 told us about her sister who inspired P14 to be a minimalist:

Where other people are like, “Oh guests are coming, we have to clean the house andpick up,” with her house, [it] is always, she calls it, staged for living. You know howyou can stage a home to sell it? Like you make it look really nice? She stages her homeeveryday so that it’s . . . how she would want it to be presented to other people is theway she wants to present it all the time so she really likes it. She appreciates it whenpeople comment and understand that this is my [her] lifestyle. [emphasis added]

Here, P14 plays on the typical meaning of staging a home by real estate agents. Staging a homeartificially places furniture and other objects in the house to give the potential home buyer a senseof what the home might look like when someone is living in it. For P14’s sister, however, the homeis a stage for demonstrating her own life. Yet, this play on the phrase doubly indicates that stagedfor living conveys both our informants’ individualism as well as desire to be received and influenceothers. With light ribbing aside, minimalists found it “reassuring” that their homes would inspirethe values and practices of visitors and others. Thus, the house is a place to reinvent and stage theirvalues for others to facilitate mutual understanding of their minimalist lifestyle.



4.2 Protecting Porous BoundariesEarlier, we argued that the home is a key site for inventing and reinventing values. The home andthe objects within outwardly and inwardly embody the values of the minimalists we interviewed.This set of values is publicly visible, commented on, and even influential on visitors. In this section,we turn to the space between the home and the outside world—the boundary between. Here, we donot mean that these activities actually occur on some real boundary, but rather these activities seekto maintain and protect the boundary between the home (where the minimalist’s subculture andits values shine) and outside social worlds.

More specifically, this border is porous. This means two things. First, minimalists try, not alwayssuccessfully, to take action to maintain their practices and values within the home. Second, valuenegotiation to protect the border often happens when objects are received by the home or move toother people’s homes.

4.2.1 Within the Boundary: Resisting Objects from the Outside World. Minimalists stressed aboutthe reception of objects from or with non-minimalists. This tension stems from how minimalistsand non-minimalists differently interpreted the value of particular objects. This was a particularsource of consternation with family members. P18 noted that in a consumerist society, objects are animportant “love language.” Here, she describes an ongoing tension with her mother’s well-intendedgifts for her children:

My mother’s [love language] in particular, is gifts. My mother has seen my house. Sheknows we have a very small space. But she will do things like buy and send my kids arocking horse. A rocking horse! That would take up half of their bedroom. So I don’t tryand explain it... but that’s the size of her love: ’This is how much I love you, I boughtyou this huge rocking horse because it’s huge and I love you a lot.’

The rocking horse and other gifts from her mother are “dollar tree” items that are antithetical tominimalist values. They fall apart, are not useful, not age appropriate, and their shipment wastesresources. P18 even prepared a list of things her mother could give her children like “a certificateto this place we go to all the time and to have really great experiences.” Again, we see the emphasishere that the importance is the experience rather than the object. P5 noted that he would let hisson decide how to celebrate a birthday but nonetheless couched such decisions in terms of itemsvs. experiences, “We tell them a birthday party is going to cost us $400...in many cases what we endup doing is inviting two or three or four of their best friends to... go fishing or go on a boat, or go towatch a movie, go play games.” Birthdays for many minimalists are emblematic of the values theyare trying to avoid.Minimalists may forcefully exert their values but recognize that sometimes a more pragmatic

approach involving compromise may be best. Above, we described situations and reasons whyminimalists decline gifts. However, minimalists certainly do sometimes keeps objects which violatetheir values. P14 spoke to us about receiving hand-made gifts (e.g., sweaters, earrings, and scarves)from her sister. These items are difficult candidates to de-clutter because “she put time into thehomely thing, so those always make me feel worse to get rid of.” So, P14 compromises: “I’ll just tryand make sure I do use them just when I’m around her... I may not enjoy them as much as somethingelse, but I know it brings her joy to see me wearing or using things that she made me, so I’m okaywith that because I know that makes her happy.” Crucial to this point is that P14 believes showingappreciation for other people’s values is important.

Minimalists acknowledged that they were unable to resist unwanted objects. Accepting unwantedobjects sometimes actually helped minimalists to resist the temptation of consumerism: “Even ifyou are not able to part with certain items for whatever reason (e.g., for sentimental reasons), perhaps



it’s making you conscientious about what you DO bring into your home” (Meetup meeting, January2018). These unwanted objects served as a reminder to avoid purchasing more items and be awareof what is allowed into the home.

4.2.2 Out of the Boundary: Asserting Values through Giving Objects. When objects no longer havea place in their home, minimalists de-clutter and often donate these items. Once they have madea decision to give away an object (rather than dispose of it), minimalists think hard about howthe object will be appropriated by its new owner. Thus, the decision to rid oneself of an objectis sometimes tied with whether that object will find the right home. P12 discusses feeling goodabout his decision to give away his guitar: “Every time I think about the guitar that I don’t even haveanymore I feel so good about it. I know it’s in better hands” (P12).

P14 describes this as giving “objects a second chance... at a price they can afford.” Many minimaliststhat we met in a Meetup believed donations are less wasteful and more responsible because theobjects go to “the community of people who need it now” (Meetup meeting, 2017).However, minimalists are often torn about donations because they worry whether the values

inscribed in their objects will be upheld. In one Meetup meeting, participants discussed howdonations do not guarantee that items would find a home—one minimalist noted that Goodwill(American thrift stores) and other organizations “keep it [donated items] for four weeks and thenit goes to the landfill . . . It makes me crazy.” Even if items are successfully transferred to a newowner, minimalists are skeptical regarding the consequences of their objects. Minimalists worry ifdonations merely exacerbate the very problems they were originally trying to solve by adoptingtheir new lifestyle:

Now, I’m just enabling someone else. Here’s another spoon that they could have intheir kitchen that they don’t need . . . it’s a struggle for me to feel like it’s okay for meto let go, and if someone else wants it—if it’s okay for them to have it (P14). [emphasisadded]

Organizations such as Goodwill or the Salvation Army do not “store” the value the previous ownerhad for the object. P4 describes her dilemma in donating a collection of prized African leatherboxes. She did not “want to donate them to like Salvation Army. They’re too precious.” So althoughshe didn’t need to use the boxes—“I have nothing in them anymore”—and wanted to donate them,she nonetheless wanted that preciousness to be carried on.Such tensions with the views of minimalists on gifting are amplified during customs of main-

stream society. P22 knows during Christmas her grandchildren will ask, “ ‘Did you bring mesomething?’ Because she’s used to the other grandma. I said, ‘Yeah, I brought myself.’ ” Naturally,teaching grandchildren to value holidays for “relationships and time together” is difficult, and P22recognizes her attitudes may be “Scrooge”-like or “anti-Christmas”; however, her refusal to givegifts is consistent with her beliefs at home.By donating items, these items are removed from any sort of original value they had, and,

moreover, become tawdry objects that clutter someone’s life. Once outside their homes, the objectsno longer have its heirloom, personal, or utilitarian characteristics but are in danger of becomingpart of a consumerist society.

4.3 Values Outside the HomeWe have just explored the concept of the home border where participants take great care to controland preserve the values in their homes. Once our participants leave their home, however, theirvalues are exposed to the greater public. Moreover, minimalists are able to assert themselves andhave their practices and their values percolate to the people and local communities around them.



4.3.1 Inculcating Values in Others’ Homes & the Local Community. Our participants felt stronglyabout the values they have adopted from minimalism. This conviction with minimalism waspracticed in the home but also outside the home to other places. In particular, family and friendswho visited our participants’ home (P2,3,4,7,8,14,18,20) were not only exposed to values via theobserved home practices of minimalists but also came away from these visits having adopted someof these values. Outside the home, our participants’ homes became exemplars to others. At thesame time, it is in the home where others try out the values of minimalist living.However, when dealing with strangers unfamiliar with minimalism, it was difficult for our

participants to fully follow minimalist values outside the home. Some of the zero waste practicesthat participants follow at home, such as not bringing plastic products home, are socially awkwardto do in public. For example, P9 related how she initially felt uncomfortable bringing her ownjars and bags to the grocery store as opposed to the provided plastic bags because others werestaring at her as she put bulk products into her own containers—“I think they thought I was stealingthe food.” Carrying her jars and bags around was a powerful way for her to enact her minimalistvalues outside the home; however, this purposeful assertion of her values through these objectswas something other shoppers had no way of knowing—making it bizarre to some.

Similarly, P20 also described a time a shop proprietor would not allow her to use her owncontainer. In response, she successfully convinced the shop itself to adopt minimalists practices:

There’s a little market close to my house, and they have a deli counter and I actuallytold them . . . I used to bring my own containers and eventually they told me, “Oh,we’re not allowed to do that.” So I started an email exchange with the owner and shetold me, “Oh you know what, now I’m going to provide my own containers and youwould be able to bring them back later on and I will clean them.”

By toting her things, it created a chance to begin a conversation on minimalist practices outside thehome. Earlier, we discussed how objects are carefully curated to fulfill the values of minimalists.Within the home, control over which objects are kept and discarded is possible. However, evenwhen venturing outside the home, minimalists still want to maintain their ethos. One way many ofthe minimalists do this is by engaging in a sharing economy. A prime example is described by P4.As a result of her value to not be wasteful, she sought out objects from organizations that supportthat ethos. She needed to be resourceful to find a “subculture of renting”:

For example, I needed a stapler to do a project. I was like, ‘I don’t want to buy a stapler.I don’t need one. It’s just for this project.’ I’m like, ‘What am I going to do?’ I ended upgoing to my local hardware store. Not Home Depot or anything, just a local place, andjust walking there. I’m like, “Well, you know, I need a stapler” . . . He’s like, “No, takeit. You can rent it for $5 for 24 hours. Take it and bring it back whenever you’re donewith it.”

P4 loved this interaction because it empowered and “enriched” her—she discovered that “I coulddo things . . . without having to own tools.” Minimalism forced her to find resources that were inline with her values within her home—places that valued objects and also allowed people to rentwithout waste. P19 spoke of how a Facebook group allowed him to connect with people who gaveaway objects. He gave away tools, and that, like with P4, forced him to seek out friends to borrowgoods. Minimalism here fosters human interaction: “So it’s just the free section of Craigslist but muchmore local . . . once I got rid of a bunch stuff, I was forced to ask my friends and stuff to use their things,and it brought us closer together ’cause we were spending time together and interacting more.”



5 DISCUSSIONIn our findings, we found that minimalists often participate in value negotiations with regardsto objects in the home. These phenomena highlight domestic environments as sites for buildingand preserving values. In this section, we propose the concept of porous boundaries as a promisinganalytic lens to understand how artifacts, coupled with their values, are preserved or resistedthrough the boundaries of a place. To make our case, we will first articulate the characteristics ofporous boundaries. Next, we articulate the benefits of the porous boundary concept in the context ofprevious work and concepts in CSCW. This concept, we believe, provides proper depth and nuanceto the interrelatedness of the practices and values of minimalists with their home and objects.Moreover, porous boundaries can be found in other homes; they are not unique to the homes ofminimalists. By gleaning porous boundaries from our minimalists, whom have an acute sensitivityto objects and spaces, we can more generally think about our objects and their relationship to ourspaces and social spheres. Lastly, we sketch out how porous boundaries can point to new, fruitfuldesign opportunities and concerns for the home.

5.1 The Concept of Porous BoundaryFor our minimalists, the home boundary is situated between the inside and outside home—notonly as a physical line that divides the home from the outside world but also as a conceptual linedemarcating two different places where different practices, norms, and values exist. Adopting newlife values and principles, our minimalists tried to preserve their values inside the home whileexcluding opposing values. They selectively allowed objects to enter into their home; for instance,refusing free items from events, repudiating gifts from visitors, and not putting stock in sentimentalobjects such as their infant’s clothes or birthday cards. In this way, minimalists reinvented theirhome by filling it exclusively with objects that they value. Furthermore, these principles reflectedthe ways minimalists brought these objects outside their home. Minimalists gave serious thoughtto externally representing their life values through their objects (e.g., using their containers insteadof disposable bags offered by a grocery shop). Our minimalists also had to negotiate or compromisetheir values on managing objects and spaces with family members (inside the home) and friendsor communities (outside the home). Although such negotiations with their value sometimes staywithin their home, sometimes they cross the home’s boundary. In other words, this is a porousboundary.

The porous boundary of the minimalist home draws inspiration from the biological cell with itssemi-permeable membrane that selectively enables movement of substances in and out to maintaincellular homeostasis. Two aspects of this biological metaphor are salient to our theory. First, semi-permeability enables the membrane to control and regulate the movement of substances in and outof cells. Second, the membrane’s purpose is to maintain an optimal difference between the interiorand exterior of the cell (called the cell potential). There is precedence in using biological metaphorsin CSCW. For example, the concept of stigmergy [17] was introduced as an explanatory device forthe cooperative practices in architectural offices and building sites. However, we emphasize thatwhile the semi-permeable membranes of cells gave us insight, the concept of porous boundariesshould not be taken to literally exhibit all the characteristics of their biological cousins.Figure 2 visually represents our concept. We define a porous boundary as a boundary (1) lying

between two separate places (e.g., an inside and outside place, Fig. 2a) (2) in which a process ofselection happens that allow only certain things to enter and exit (e.g., Fig. 2c, d1). Its mechanisms(principles) regulating and controlling the movement of things across the boundary allows it tocontinuously (3) ensure one side is different from the other side, thereby protecting one side (Fig. 2b).Thus, porous boundaries particularly focus on one side as the “protected” place.



Object

Value

Protected Boundary

Porous Boundary

(a)

(b)(c)

(c)

(d)(d1)

(d2)

(e)

Fig. 2. Visual Depiction of Porous Boundary–a: porous boundary between the place and outside, b: delimitsthe place of interest (e.g., home); Possible Scenarios with Objects/Values–c: rejection of object, d: acceptancebut eventual rejection of object and value, e: fading value when object goes outside

A porous boundary focuses our attention to a border demarcating a place from the outside—seeing two sides that maintain their distinctiveness. At the same time, the border’s permeablenature focuses our attention to the things that pass through the border. More concretely, thisconcept asks us to consider the formation, management, and reinforcement of the boundary as wellas the activities and objects that contribute to the porosity of the boundary. In the next section, wewill delimit porous boundaries in regard to other notions of “boundaries” in CSCW, thus clarifyingthe benefits of a porous boundary lens and our contribution.

5.1.1 Versus Blurred Boundaries in CSCW. The “blurred” border or boundary is a common andpowerful metaphor in sociology (e.g., [3, 62]) and CSCW (e.g., [50, 86]). A number of studies havepointed out that the Internet and mobile connectivity have blurred the boundary between home andwork [36, 62], home and secondary home [56, 72], or between home and other, multiple sites [58].Since work can now be easily accomplished outside the company, any place can be a workplace [18].Studies on telecommuting or nomadic work [83] have also noted howworkers are able to reconfigureother workplaces to be their own workplace. Others have shown the elasticity of outside placessuch as the coffee shop and airport [74]. Further, Aipperspach et al. [2] emphasized that spatialboundaries are increasingly blurred “even in spatially complex homes” because technologies inhome “create similar landscapes throughout the home (p.2)” (e.g., televisions playing in multiplerooms). The blurred boundary concept is helpful for visualizing how activities of social worlds [81]that once were separate are no longer temporally and geographically demarcated.



To highlight the contributions and benefits of our conceptual lens, we now turn to contrastingporous boundaries with blurred boundaries. Whereas a blurred border is about nearly eliminatingborders so that the two sides are nearly indistinguishable (e.g., in the case of home and workwhere both activities begin to interleave with each other), porous boundaries remain as bordersseparating social worlds [81]. Simultaneously, porous boundaries highlight the work to maintainborders—acknowledging that we sometimes allow and/or prevent influence from other worlds.With respect to objects, when using blurred boundaries, objects may lie in the blurred boundary,serving both sides of the boundary—for example, a laptop may be regarded as an object used forboth the home and workplace. On the other hand, if we apply the lens of porous boundaries, objectscan only be on one side of a boundary. Thus, our concept sees objects as inherently belonging inone place at a time.

Following this, porous boundaries highlight the instability and fragility of value-laden objects—objects go from one space to another, and its intertwined meaning and value may fade awayafter passing through the porous boundary (of course, sometimes, an object’s value is retained)(Fig. 2d2, e). For example, in our findings, meaningful objects such as hand-made sweaters by themother-in-law were seen as clutter by minimalists. Although minimalists initially received theseobjects, they eventually expelled them (Fig. 2d). On the contrary, the personal jars minimalists usedat groceries do not speak for themselves—their purpose was justified to others outside the home(Fig. 2e). In both cases, we can see how the value of objects was both broken and preserved as theymoved past boundaries.

Thus, a porous boundary often requires value negotiation and compromise in order to accept anobject into a space, whereas a blurred boundary tends to underplay the significance of objects. Forexample, people who adopt a mobile lifestyle [72] have a blurred boundary between their primaryand secondary home. The secondary home is an extension of the home; the physical and spatialarrangements of the secondary home are duplicated from their primary domicile. The blurredboundary does not addresses how objects may interplay with the meanings of each or both homes.

In sum, in contrast to blurred boundaries, a porous boundary lies (1) in-between two incompatiblespaces, (2) its porosity comes from the mobility of objects across the boundary, and (3) may have itsmeanings and values leak or fade away. In this way, a porous boundary preserves values withoutblurring the identities of each space. This concept illustrates how the mobility of objects and valuesacross boundaries and the ensuing negotiations often defines the home space (or whatever thespace of interest is) as a site for value exploration.

5.1.2 Versus Boundary Objects in CSCW. Since boundary objects are perhaps the key concept ofCSCW [1, 6, 49, 55, 76], we now discuss its relation to our concept of porous boundary. Althoughthe objects in our porous boundary are generally mundane, everyday artifacts, boundary objectshave been associated with academic disciplines that have different jargons, methodologies, andagendas. For example, boundary objects are often a knowledge object such as a map [80] or ablueprint [55]. Star [79] explains that the “boundary” of boundary objects is “a shared space whereexactly that sense of here and there are confounded” (p.603). Boundary here resembles a blurredboundary. The boundary object concept [11, 80] acknowledges diverse epistemological backgroundsand facilitates an open exchange of different interpretations that leads to finding common groundthat can support collaboration. Thus, the porous boundary and boundary object concept share arecognition that objects inherit pluralistic values and knowledge, thereby making them sites fortension or negotiation. Star [79] see this dynamic as the core of the boundary object concept.Recent CSCW scholars have called for an elaboration on the boundary object concept. Lee

[49] suggested that a notion of boundary negotiating object could incorporate the disorganizedpractices inherent in collaboration and push “past the assumptions of standardization and stable



boundaries between communities on which it lies” [49, p.404]. Lutters and Ackerman [55] furtheradvanced discussion on boundary objects with their fieldwork on aircraft technical support. Heshowed that boundary objects are actually more complex than originally thought and emphasized aholistic approach—one should examine boundary processes: “the various boundary objects, memoryprocesses, and meta-negotiations” [55, p.370]. Our definition of a porous boundary is aligned withthis on-going discussion. We highlight the unstable nature of the boundary and the process offorming and maintaining the boundary—specifically by attending to the mobility of objects (whenpassing the object across a boundary) and the fragility of values in objects (e.g., which values failto be delivered?) once they cross the boundary.

5.2 The Design Space of Porous BoundariesAs alluded to in Section 2, past research has sought to go beyond the “traditional meaning of thehome” [19]. Studies in these different domains point us to new aspects of “homemaking,” such as itsdynamism [39], materialism [30, 75], and role in identify-making [26, 27, 30]. Home can range froma haven filled with harmony and comfort to a place of conflict, violence, and injustice [78]. Thissuggests we cannot make easy assumptions in our research on the home. Crabtree and Rodden [18]tried to demystify researchers’ assumptions on the home as a particularly private place with limitedaccess. They pointed out that the home is not necessarily more or less private than a workplacesince the workplace also denies access to outsiders and often engages more gatekeepers. To explore“unstated assumptions about the nature of homes and domestic life” (p.375), Bell and Dourish [9]explored the properties of the shed as “both part of the home and separated from it.” Looking at theshed spatially and conceptually as a space at the edges and boundaries of the home, the authorsproblematized the stable category of the home and critically re-examined domestic issues of space.For example, Bell and Dourish discussed gendered divisions of space—the shed as a masculinespace and a place of male refuge from the house and family. In a similar line, Aipperspach et al. [2]wrote of the “heterogenous home,” a future home with different kinds of spatial boundaries (e.g.,boundaries between technology-rich and technology-free spaces). To explore alternative meaningsof home, Desjardins et al. [19] also proposed that we speculate the home of the future (e.g., whatwould the home look like in 200 years?).

As a starting point to examining how porous boundaries can help inform the design space, weturn to the notion of threshold devices by Gaver et al. [28]. They developed devices to transmitinformation around the home (e.g., weather, neighboring events) into the home, thereby expandingthe boundary of domesticity via what they call “electronic thresholds.” Their goal ultimately was tocreate new experiences for inhabitants of homes about “where they are, what and who is aroundthem, and may occasion their attitudes towards these facts.” Features of threshold devices importantfor their success include being open to interpretation [77], their aesthetically pleasing form, andproviding a view on information relative to the home’s location.Both electronic thresholds and porous boundaries can be seen as prioritizing the “view” from

inside the home. Although we do not intend to offer concrete design solutions for minimalists northe home, we will take the tack of comparing and contrasting our notion of porous boundaries toask what role computing may take in the home. We acknowledge that this contrast with thresholddevices is not meant to be exhaustive (there are other research designs which might be usefulto compare against) but believe it helpful to elucidate how porous boundaries may contribute todesign.

5.2.1 Finding, Protecting, and Opening Boundaries. Threshold devices embrace open interpretation.The connection between information around the home is not always concretely linked with theinformation portrayed on the threshold device. When the weather is windy, for example, the device



will portray far away events without telling the user it is windy. Thus, while the informationtransmitted from outside the home creates novel experiences for users, the user cannot definitivelyknow what triggered that information receipt. Over time, users can understand how events aroundtheir homes triggered certain content to be sent to their house—users were thus invited to openinterpretations of their objects.A porous boundary notion however may argue against multiple interpretation. In some cases,

users may want to advocate the “right” values of objects. If boundaries need to protect the meaningof objects, this suggests that the meaning of boundaries needs to be made explicit. If researchersexamine what objects are allowed to pass a boundary, they may be better positioned to designtechnology that fits users’ perceptions and expectations of home. For example, we can look athow shoes signify a boundary; we can see how some people remove their shoes at the front doorwhile others may leave them in a foyer or in the kitchen. In this case, shoes (objects) demarcateboundaries and reveal how we treat spaces differently. We believe that researchers could takeadvantage of this approach practically as a design research method to better cater to their users’values. Taking the example further, examining places where people remove their shoes could be astarting point to identify a boundary and use it as a space for design intervention. Thus, boundariessignify authoritatively that a space is meant to be interpreted in a specific manner. This is onemanner in which porous boundaries can guide design research.If we rally against multiple interpretation, however, porous boundaries suggest clashes in in-

terpretation. Pragmatically, the home is also a temporary site for contested values. The homemay be in an “unstable” state if not all objects cohere to a certain set of values (each of which areunequivocally defined). For example, clutter is the grouping of heterogeneous things that are “out ofplace” and can be classified as something else, which connotes a sense of ambiguity and uncertaintyaround the notion of clutter [85]. This suggests that a design space for porous boundaries mustinclude ways of informing or making apparent the harmony or instability between objects. Forexample, designs may consider the assemblages of intended values of objects in a home.The intertwining of value negotiation and objects also suggests that objects may need to be

recognized as a set. What makes a home a minimalist’s home is not one single object but rather,thehome and its entire set of objects and spaces. Thus, design needs to also consider how interpretationis done only by considering multiple objects. That is, upon viewing an assemblage of objects, howmight design convey the work done to create this set? This may consist of devices conveyingwhere and from whom they come from, and how they are related to other objects. Designers mayneed to reflect how to get a sense of the desired state for the home, the current state, and howincoming and outgoing objects effect this state (e.g., identifying the “centerpiece” of a collection).In this sense, porous boundaries suggest that designs need to account for the “equilibrium” ofspaces. As minimalists showed, they engage in porous boundaries continually to redefine theirhome, reflecting their identity to achieve a sense of well-being. So, design may help point out howassemblages represent values to both visitors and inhabitants. This way, people can recognize theroles each object plays in fulfilling this idealized, positive state of the home.

5.2.2 The Aesthetics of Objects. Threshold devices require attention—they are designed to be promi-nently placed and used at home. They are not to “be experienced primarily at the periphery” Gaveret al. [28, p.1437]. This is achieved partly by their aesthetic appeal. We can draw an analogy to howporosity pointed to the display or staging of values to others. In terms of design, we may thinkabout the ways users can display their objects collectively in an aesthetic, coherent manner. Oneintriguing avenue is media art—mobile phone orchestras or laptop orchestras are a creative meansto aesthetically represent a single message out of many [92].



Just as affordances in HCI have pointed to how use can be suggested through (often mobile)form, we may ask how the values of an entire home can be made mobile and apparent to others.This is akin to how some researchers have looked at how objects and infrastructures leave tracesof past activity [22, 29]. For example, how can we design objects that retain some value as theypass from owner to owner? Although Odom et al. [65] emphasize what makes objects valuable,porosity also speaks of values that transform. Thus, an object may have different values as theypass boundaries. We suggest that designs can convey, perhaps aesthetically, previously held valuesthat are also amenable to becoming valuable for others (even if those values are different). In otherwords, how can “one person’s treasure be another person’s (different) treasure?” Such designs canensure that digital artifacts fit with sustainable practices.What needs to be made apparent are not only the values inscribed in objects but when values

have faded or are lost. How can we convey the fragility of values in objects? For instance, a fragileobject may have had many owners with many different interpretations. How can this aestheticallybe portrayed like the patina in the History Table Cloth [29]? Fragility of values can be a positive andnegative. It is positive because such artifacts may be valuable for many parties, but it is negativebecause these past values are not persistent.

5.2.3 The View from Inside and Outside. Porous boundaries emphasize that the outside is alsoviewing inside the home. Threshold devices are unidirectional, but devices for porosity need tobe bidirectional. The home is not isolated from one’s community [93]. When we situate home inthe community, individual values could implicitly or explicitly spill out and circulate throughoutits community. Thus, if devices like threshold devices can help us experience the outside world,what would it mean for the outside world to experience our homes? For example, the outside ofour homes—lawns, door ornaments—signify something about the inside of our homes. How canwe experience what is valued in a home?

Certainly, smart technologies for the home have adopted this perspective. Smart security camerasand smart doorbells enable inhabitants to view the goings-on of the home. However, a porousboundary perspective may suggest that “viewers” do not need to be limited to inhabitants or ownersof the home. Visitors may glean information about the home. Of course, we are not proposingthat strangers have unvarnished access to the home. Rather, people who have a relationship withthe inhabitant may view a “staged” perspective on the home—through the porous boundary, onlyparticular facets are “leaked” through to the outside. For example, we may surmise that a family thatvalues cooking and eating together can present an activity heatmap of their home to exemplify howthey accomplish and reinforce their values. We posit that these multiple home views available forvisitors may help community members understand the values of their neighbors. Just as minimalistssought out related movements or practitioners, displaying values can help influence others to adoptor seek out information about different lifestyles.

6 CONCLUSIONInspired by our minimalists’ practices, we found that home is a space with a porous boundary.Focusing on the porosity of these borders provides a macroscopic perspective of how a place (e.g.,the home) is intertwined with a heterogeneous and related set of actors, objects, practices, andvalues. Future CSCW research on domains with so-called alternative values may find the concept ofporous boundary useful. It encourages researchers to articulate value practices but also how certainvalues are bound to multiple places and objects. Methodologically, this suggests that we ought tosee what practices over the boundary of home make one’s home experiences meaningful. Giventhat smart home technologies now connect our home to the outside world and have potentiallyprovided more opportunities for transferring things (physical or digital) over the boundary of our



home, the concept of porous boundary may be even more relevant as it simultaneously becomesless visible [42]. We may focus our gaze on where these porous areas and surfaces are digitallysituated in our daily practices. Porous boundaries, we hope, point to further promising conceptsand frameworks that will help us understand and support re-configurations enacted by people onthe objects and spaces that are tied to one another via the values and priorities of people’s lives.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSWe thank our anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback which helped improve thispaper immensely. We are also grateful for our participants, who, with open arms, shared theirlifestyles with us.

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Received April 2018; revised July 2018; accepted September 2018


https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025966

https://doi.org/10.1145/1394445.1394478

https://doi.org/10.1145/1375761.1375764

https://doi.org/10.1145/1375761.1375764

https://doi.org/10.1145/1958824.1958860

https://doi.org/10.1145/1031607.1031697

https://doi.org/10.1145/1054972.1055060

https://doi.org/10.1145/1056808.1057080

https://doi.org/10.1145/2818048.2819937

https://doi.org/10.1145/2818048.2819937

https://doi.org/10.1145/3022198.3022654

https://doi.org/10.1145/3022198.3022654

https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.L2293951

https://doi.org/10.1145/1240624.1240710

https://doi.org/10.1145/1357054.1357109

https://doi.org/10.1145/1518701.1518817

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