Governing canal life

This article focuses on the governance of canals in England and Wales. The Canal & River Trust (CRT), owner manager waterways, has a statutory responsibility to grant ‘certificates’ or licences. licence constructs category called ‘continuous cruisers’ who live aboard their boat. Drawing sample interviews with cruiser liveaboards’ (CCLs), we discuss how by CRT gradually encroached everyday lives, leading them reconsider lives canal. We illustrate this through exploring translated obscure legislation make it legible techniques simplification, but did so way that had problematic effects CCLs; apparently enabling constraining regulation operates, paradoxically, contradictory ways, both significantly affecting CCLs’ lives. At heart, there is simple story here nomadic life relatively recent vintage being (or perceived as being) sedentarized.