Corcoran, M. P., J. Gray, et al. (2010). Suburban affiliations: social relations in the greater Dublin area. Syracuse, N.Y., Syracuse University Press.
This book explores suburban life, change and affiliations through a detailed study of four suburbs of Dublin. Using mixed qualitative and quantitative case study methods (combining in-depth interviews, observations, visual methods and surveys), the authors explore the impact of recent suburban developments which grew up around Dublin during the boom years of the mid-1990s. The authors locate the Irish suburb within the wider context of debates and empirical studies of suburbs in the United States, Britain and Europe. The book challenges negative stereotypes about social life in the suburbs, which tend to portray suburbia as homogeneous, superficial and disconnected. Rather, the authors argue that suburbs represent 'arenas of affiliations' where residents are connected with the people and places in their communities in ways which are 'neither entirely superficial nor deeply intimate'. The authors suggest that 'affiliation' is a better model for understanding connectedness and embeddedness within suburbs, rather than the overused concept of social capital. Another study which challenges negative images of neighbourly relations in suburbia is Laurier et al*'s article on 'neighbouring as an occasioned activity'.