Title: Historical Overview of Theoretically Informed Housing Studies AHURI Postgraduate Symposium 16605 Kat
1Historical Overview of Theoretically Informed
Housing StudiesAHURI Postgraduate Symposium
16/6/05 Kathy Arthurson, UniSA (thanks to Keith
Jacobs for his notes)
- Housing Research Theory
- Why has housing research become more receptive to
theory? - Practical constraints
- Key tensions in theoretically informed housing
research - Three key texts that have informed housing
studies - Theories of knowledge
- Postscript the contribution of economic theory
2 1 Housing Research Theory
- Theory is not just an academic luxury, it is the
means of enabling readers to judge a piece of
research on its own merits and its own terms, and
to avoid confusion over just what is being said
and what its limitations are (Jim Kemeny).
31 Housing Research Theory
- The best housing scholarship has always embraced
social theory, for example - political economy (Merritt, 1979 Ball, 1983
Maclennan, 1982), - political science (Dunleavy, 1981), social
geography (Harvey, 1973, Smith, 1989 Massey,
1994) and
41 Housing Research Theory
- sociology (Rex and Moore 1967 Saunders, 1990).
- Also the case that Housing studies dominated by
a strong presumption that the primary task of
research is to aid policy prescription.
52 Why has housing research become more receptive
to theory?
- Theoretically informed housing research seen as a
way to counteract the dominance of prescriptive
research. - A widespread understanding that explicit
theorising produces better quality research
outcomes - An appreciation that housing research cannot be
undertaken successfully in isolation from wider
debates taking place in other social science
disciplines.
62 Why has housing research become more receptive
to theory?
- The context of housing has altered significantly
- i.e. residualisation of the social rental housing
stock - transformation of the welfare state accentuated
by globalisation processes
73 Practical constraints
- Funding and commissioning of housing research
favours prescriptive policy orientated outcomes - specific demands of contract research pressure
to generate income from consultancies has stifled
opportunities to conduct critically orientated
research. - Consultancies that housing academics engage in
focus on improving housing practice but limit the
scope for explicit theory.
84 Key tensions in theoretically informed housing
research
- Analysis versus Prescription
- Should distinguish between approaches
- Those specifically attempting to interpret
understand housing policy - Those written from the perspective of addressing
the limitations of policy.
94 Key tensions in theoretically informed housing
research
- What is a social problem?
- The most popular view of housing policy portrays
the state as benevolent - Its overriding objective is to ameliorate the
conditions of those most in housing need seek
out solutions to housing problems
104 Key tensions in theoretically informed housing
research
- Construction of housing policy as initiatives,
which Governments undertake, is an unwieldy model
in which to interpret significant changes that
have taken place
114 Key tensions in theoretically informed housing
research
- Structure v agency
- Key question What is the appropriate framework
to analyse social and political change? - Main approaches
- Structuralist- stresses relationship between
housing outcomes and the wider economy and
rejects individualistic interpretations
124. Key tensions in theoretically informed housing
research
- Agency - (influenced by Weber) primacy of the
individual, (urban managerialism i.e. the work
of Ray Pahl Rex and Moore, 1967 Saunders,
1990) - Consolidating approaches
- Structuration theory (Giddens)
- Habitus (Bourdieu)
134. Key tensions in theoretically informed housing
research
- Understanding the role of the state and the
market. - No study of housing can be carried out without a
considerable part of the discussion being devoted
to an analysis of the state and its direct and
indirect influence on the provision and
consumption of housing (Kemeny, 192 37)
144. Key tensions in theoretically informed housing
research
- Issues
- Defining the state
- The role of the state
- Strong state vs. weak state
- Changes in the role of the state
- Links between the state and policy-making
155 Three key texts that have informed housing
studies
- 1.Housing Social Theory (1992) Jim Kemeny
- Housing research is under-theorised
- Tendency for housing researchers to engage in
epistemic drift - Critical of what he terms unilinearism and
convergence tendencies
165 Three key texts that have informed housing
studies
- For Kemeny, these tendencies are flawed as they
ignore divergence and differences within
localities. - 2. Housing Economic Power (1983) Michael
Ball - Best viewed as a critique of research that
focuses on the consumption of housing needs of
consumers
175 Three key texts that have informed housing
studies
- The importance of Balls work is to bring
attention to the impact of production and supply
on housing policy - The analysis of policy should take into account
the extent to which state intervention is a
response to problems of maintaining profitability
in the construction industry and other parts of
the private sector involved in supply of housing.
185 Three key texts that have informed housing
studies
- Balls main criticism of housing research is the
failure to analyse, in sufficient detail, the
interest groups and the social relations. - 3. The constitution of the Home Towards a
Research Agenda (1988) Housing Studies Vol. 3
No. 2, Peter Saunders and Peter Williams
195 Three key texts that have informed housing
studies
- Suggests a new focus for housing research
- Authors argue that need to focus on the home as
the active and reproduced fusion of household
and house ....rather than a housing or the
dwelling itself - Enables research to emphasise aspects of
consumption in contrast to processes of
production.
205 Three key texts that have informed housing
studies
- Utilising Giddens (1984) notion of locale to
explicate how social interaction is partly
constituted by spatial context. - Criticisms
- Somerville (1989) argues against the analytical
distinction drawn between consumption and
production, suggesting that the two are
inextricably intertwined. - Gurney (1990) questions the assumption that the
home can be defined, quantified and be subjected
to taxonomic generalisations.
216 Theories of Knowledge
- Positivism (dominant models in policy orientated
research but tends to be used implicitly) - Objective external world
- Knowledge through scientific process
- Quantitative methods
- Technical expertise
226 Theories of Knowledge
- Social Constructionism (influential in recent
theory- based housing research) - Study of human conduct should be based on
understanding (verstehen) - need to grasp the
subjective consciousness of the participants. - An interpretative framework (Dilthey, Weber,
Schutz Berger and Luckmann,)
236 Theories of Knowledge
- No role for methods of the natural sciences
- Truth is an elusive concept - multiple,
subjective realities. - Possibility of plurality of competing goals of
rival groups within organisations.
246 Theories of Knowledge
- Shift attention from what people are supposed to
do to what they actually do. - Attention to social change.
- Focus on power
- Recognition of impossibility of theory-neutral
observation
256 Theories of Knowledge
- Presuppositions behind Social Constructionism
- Knowledge is theory driven
- Impossible to separate researcher (object) from
subject under investigation - No separation between theory practice
- Researchers are never objective or value neutral
- Research occurs within community of scholarship
267 Postscript the contribution of economic theory
- Housing economics is more geography based -
housing regarded as one element of land use.
Housing is not seen as a separate discipline
(Maclennan and Whitehead, 1996). - Economics as an approach for housing studies has
become more important in recent years for two
main reasons. - Housing is becoming more market orientated.
- Governments want to target resources to most
needy control social housing expenditure.
Policy makers look to economists to see how they
can target their resources more efficiently.
277 Postscript the contribution of economic theory
- Underlying paradigm - mechanisms of the market
operate according to certain principles (supply
demand) and that outcomes can be predicted as a
result of these market mechanisms. - Four main approaches.
- Dominant approach (popular in US) focus on
static, equilibrium outcomes of rational
residential location choices in competitive
market based systems. - The efficiency of housing finance markets and
especially the capacity of those markets to
utilise the benefits of regional diversification.
287 Postscript the contribution of economic theory
- Econometric Models of overall housing market
- Focus on notion of market failure impact of
government policy on housing outcomes partial
equilibrium model
29Conclusions
- Provided an overview of theoretically informed
housing studies - Much of the work to date is developed in a
positivist framework - Opportunities for cutting edge work that links
housing and theory