PROOF ONLY ‘There is one in every home’ Finding the place of television in new homes among a low-income population in Santiago, Chile ● Sebastian Ureta ABSTRACT ● This article studies the symbolic and practical meaning of the placement of television sets in different home spaces. Based on fieldwork conducted among a low-income population in Santiago, Chile, it shows how their move to a social housing estate constitutes for these families an opportunity to start organizing their domestic space in a different way, particularly in accordance with modernist distinctions between public and private spaces. In this context television sets appear as a central element of the material culture of the home, symbolizing for family members their access to the normal stock of material culture in urban homes. But at the same time the practice of watching television both in public and private places is commonly resisted, showing that the device still occupies an ambiguous place within the ideas of domesticity of the members of the families under study. ● KEYWORDS ● home spaces ● housing estates ● location ● material culture ● television set When thinking about the place of television at home it is clear that the rela- tionship between television-related practices and the rest of the practices that we identify as forming what we call ‘home’ is very complex. Unlike any other media technology, television occupies a central place in home practices to the extent that it is difficult to imagine or think about home without recalling its presence and its effect on the home environment. From the distribution and use of home spaces to the scheduling of individual actors in time, television practices constitute one of the central nodes around which, and in connection with, domestic life is lived. ARTICLE INTERNATIONAL journal of CULTURAL studies Copyright © 2008 SAGE Publications Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore www.sagepublications.com Volume 11(4): 477–497 DOI: 10.1177/1367877908096055 477 06-096055-Ureta.qxd 9/8/2008 6:52 PM Page 477