Whatever floats your boat: practice, class and distinction on Britain’s waterways

Over recent years, increasing numbers of people in Britain have sought to live on inland waterways. In this paper we identify the different circumstances in which people come to live on the water; examine the differentiated ways in which boaters can access the waterway network and assess how different forms of regulation and practice impact on the social geographies of using canals. Drawing on interviews with people living on the water, we examine diverse groups of people compete to practice the waterscape in different ways. Based on this analysis, we identify new, emergent class structures of living on the water.