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Theorising the Three Facets of Housing: a sociological perspective Hannu Ruonavaara Department of Social Research University of Turku 1.Introduction • • • • • • In English ‘housing’ has a double meaning Housing (noun) an object, a good, that can be manufactured and demolished, produced and consumed, perceived and experienced, bought and sold. Housing (verb) the process of people getting ‘housed’, that is, the sum of activities that people in a society do to provide housing for themselves or for other people (noun) The same is true of some other languages (German, French, but not Finnish!) that the same word is used for material artefacts that people can live in and the activity of living in them So: in many languages the word ‘housing’ is multifaceted Is this more generally the case? Is the concept of housing still multifaceted if our languages provides means to distinguish between houses, flats etc. and living in them? And if housing is multifaceted, how can it be theorised? 2. Can there be a theory of housing? Jim Kemeny’s critique of housing research, part 1 Housing research has • neglected the theoretical debates in the various social science disciplines • kept itself in a special housing studies bubble where outside influences reached only belatedly • tended to ‘reinvent the wheel’, i.e. come up with ‘new’ ideas that had been long ago discovered elsewhere. • Why? Housing studies is a policy-oriented field • The way how multidisciplinary work was performed in housing research: research united around the ‘smallest common denominator’ (e.g. the empirical issues at hand, policy makers’ concepts and general ideas) • Kemeny’s ‘back to disciplines’ program: researchers should return to the ideas of their parent disciplines and then bring these to the common multidisciplinary endeavor. Jim Kemeny’s critique of housing research, part 2 • Housing research has neglected the fact that housing is so deeply embedded in social relations and structures that trying to theorize it independently of other aspects of society is doomed to failure • “The most important thing in the name of HTS is the comma between ‘Housing’ and ‘Theory’” (interview) ‘a theory of housing’ is not worth the effort • Peter King: this is the established view on theorizing in housing studies King’s argument against the established view, part 1 • The established view (EV): housing studies can only apply theories developed elsewhere, not develop their own theory • King’s critique: the justification of the EV referring to the social embeddedness of housing is a false one • (1) all topics of research interest (at least in social sciences and humanities) are embedded in social relations; • (2) if social embeddedness prevented theorizing specific topics, there could not be any other but general theories of the ‘social’; • (3) but it is a fact that there are successful special theories of specific research topics (indeed some think these are just the theories we need! Cf. the renaissance of ‘theories of the middle range’) reductio ad absurdum • I think King is quite right about this King’s argument against the established view, part 2 • There is a kind of theory of housing developed from contemplating what King calls private dwelling: • ‘activity in which we use dwellings to meet our ends and fulfill our interests, to such an extent that this singular dwelling becomes meaningful to us’ (King 2009). • What is this? • A phenomenological analysis of what people do as users of housing • BUT: this is quite far from the mainstream of housing studies … ‘the concern for the production, consumption, management and maintenance of a stock of dwellings’ (King 2009) Where Kemeny and King agree (perhaps) The mainstream, ordinary housing research focusing on the housing provision chain and its elements (production, consumption …) is, if it is to be theoretical at all, indeed dependent on theory developed in the parent disciplines (like sociology, political science or economics). Housing studies as a theory parasite? • But did Kemeny think that in the field of theory housing studies is a Serresian parasite that only takes from others but never gives anything back? No. • He writes: Housing research needs both to draw more extensively from debates and theories in the social sciences and to contribute to such debates with studies of housing. (Kemeny 1992) • So … the relation between housing studies and disciplines should be reciprocal • But can studies of housing contribute theoretically to more general questions? An example of housing studies’ contribution to a (sub)discipline • Kemeny’s influential book on homeownership from 1981 • A theoretical hypothesis about the inverse relation between the dominance of homeownership in a country and the level of social welfare provided by the state • Kemeny hypothesis was later discussed and tested more systematically by welfare state researchers, particularly Stephen Castles and his co-workers • BUT: they missed the potentially more ambitious theoretical idea about privatised and collectivised social structures … • Also research on ‘housing-asset based welfare’ Why EV is right? What do we theorise when we theorise housing? • The possibility of a or the theory of housing can be questioned from a completely different perspective • Long time ago Manuel Castells questioned the scientific status of urban sociology by asking whether it had a specific, well-defined and characteristically urban object of theorizing • As some of us may remember, he fond that it lacked such an theoretical object and from this he drew wide-ranging consequences about its status • The idea of theoretical object can be applied to housing studies (HS) • What do we theorize when we theorize ‘housing’? • King’s answer: ‘private dwelling’ … but this research area is very restricted in terms of topic and also of method (phenomenology of housing experience) most of what we have been accustomed to call housing research deals with completely other questions Will the real HS stand up? • • • Housing studies theorise also King’s ‘housing policy’, the housing provision chain and its elements (e.g. structures housing provision approach, hybridization of social housing organizations etc.) And many other topics that perhaps do not neatly fall under the housing policy categories: e.g. middle-class activism in housing issues, gentrification of LGBT households, cohousing, the social construction of homelessness, recommodification of housing, cognitive frames shaping the practices of housing professionals, feeling of home, housing equity, etc. (from 2015 volume of Housing, Theory and Society) With such a variety of topics it seems unlikely that any one theory of housing could account for them all The established view is correct … but not for Kemeny’s reasons • The basic reason for the impossibility of A Theory of Housing is that housing itself is not a research topic but a common denominator of a number of research topics: housing policy, housing provision, housing organizations, housing choice, housing mobility, housing tenures, use of housing, meaning of housing, politics of housing, etc. • Therefore the borders of HS are fuzzy and unclear research under its broad umbrella can be seen as belonging to one or more other specialisms An example of housing research with multiple affiliations • A great deal of recent research on home ownership in Europe and Australia has focused on housing equity (that is, the wealth that homeowners hold in the form of housing they own): how equity is made use of by owner-occupiers, how equity is distributed between different social groups, to what extent households perceive housing wealth as providing security at old age, are governments starting to reformulate welfare policies towards housing-asset based welfare. These questions have to with housing and therefore they can be seen to fall into the scope of housing studies. However, just as well some of them can be seen as belonging to the more general field of economic sociology, as well as research on inequality. The question of whether there is a trend towards housing-asset based welfare provision or not, is equally a part of a more general analysis of trends in welfare provision, falling under jurisdiction of social policy research. Interim conclusions • • • Housing indeed is embedded in society to the extent that it is a common denominator of a number of research topics that often are connected to questions that concern wider range of issues than just housing A sensible strategy for theorization in housing research is to make use of the concepts and ideas developed in more general research specialisms as well as general research approaches developed within disciplines Apart from just applying theories developed elsewhere, housing researchers should pay back the debt to other fields by trying to contribute to them with the ideas and concepts they have developed while investigating housing issues 2. Sociologists theorising housing Metatheoretical preliminaries: What sociologists theorise? Part 1 • • • • • • Four kinds of questions Actions/interactions: the impact of people’s membership in groups, communities and societies on their actions and interactions Examples in the housing field: Acquisition of housing, everyday use of residential space, home-making, neighboring, housing transactions, collective action in housing issues, housing politics all are issues that concern the activities people under take in connection with housing. Institutions: what kind of institutionalised patterns of action and interaction there are in groups, communities and societies and how they form institutional orders and systems Illustration from the housing field: Social housing in the sense of non-profit rental housing allocated on the basis of need is an institution that exists in many countries in Europe, but not all. Social housing is part of a larger institutional order, the system of housing tenures in a country. Examples: housing tenures, systems of housing provision, housing policies, housing organizations Metatheoretical preliminaries: What sociologists theorise? Part 2 • Social structures: division of people into unequal power positions in society in terms of economic resources, social power and prestige • Examples in the housing field: unequal access to housing, socioeconomic differences in housing tenure and wealth, social and ethnic segregation • Shared meanings: the meanings that people share due to their membership in groups, communities and societies. These meanings concern the way how people perceive the society, the way they see themselves, the values and attitudes they hold, the symbols they cherish, the customs and habits they consider appropriate etc. • Examples in the housing field: meanings of housing and home, the public image of housing tenures, public image of people living in different tenures, social construction of housing problems, ‘policy theories’ behind housing policies (Bengtsson) You can start any place but often you have to visit other places, too • Most sociological theories start from one or the other of the four objects of theorising: action, institutions, structures or meaning • Often it is the case that starting from one kind of theoretical question you have to somehow deal with the other kinds: a theory focusing on institutional orders might come up with the problem of accounting for actors actions, structural theorising needs to think about the institutional grounding of social divisions, etc. • The choice of the starting point is a result of researchers’ ’brain activity’ that is heavily influenced by her/his sociocultural context and life history • The starting point does not free you from the trouble of thinking of the other points of departure. Sometimes it is possible to ignore the one or the other but often not – at least if you want to theorize well. • Where I start from, is action/interaction. Preliminaries for an action-focused theorization of housing • • • • Why action? The most obvious reason: society happens only through activity of and interaction between actors, both individual and collective. The starting point of Max Weber’s brand of sociology: the focus on “interpretative understanding of social action and thereby with a causal explanation of its course and consequences” (Weber) The view represents the GOFAT, the good old-fashioned action theory (John Levi Martin) that sees action arising from motivation following a simple formula: ((actors’ desires + actors’ beliefs) --> deliberation)/social context –> actors’ actions Action is thinly rational: “Neither goals nor beliefs concerning the means to achieve them have to be rational in some ‘objective’ sense. Thinly rational actors act for a reason on the basis of their more or less fallible beliefs that are greatly shaped by the situation they find themselves in.” (Bengtsson & Ruonavaara 2016) Actors’ desires and beliefs are shaped by meanings they attach to different objects of action, for example housing. These can be theorised. This will serve as an illustration of the kind of theorization I consider desirable in sociology of housing. What types of meanings housing could be theorised to have? Part 1 • • • • • In housing research the distinction between houses (or housing), dwellings and homes seems rather common There are slightly different interpretations of the difference but this is rather common: ‘House’ is referring to the physical structure of housing; ‘home’ to the people’s relationships (psychological, social, cultural, affective, behavioural) with houses; ‘dwelling’ to activities people engage in housing. For example, Coolen and his coauthors define dwelling as ‘a system of settings (physical aspect) in which systems of activities take place’ (Coolen, Kempen & Ozaki 2002). Is one facet of housing here forgotten? “The recognition here that housing has both a use and exchange value is crucially important” (Perkins and Thorns 1999). Housing can be bought and sold, and households are compelled to do that as there is practically no substitute for housing What types of meanings housing could be theorised to have? Part 2 • Dagfinn Ås’ analysis of attitudes towards housing • The basic distinction is that between housing as home, a place that people identify with, a part of themselves, and housing as an external object. • As an external object housing can on one hand be “a utility article that is to suit the household and the activities that the persons in it shall engage in (use value)’ (Ås 1993). For Ås’ this is the dwelling facet of housing. On the other hand, as an external object housing can be seen as a something that has an economic value, an investment a household has made. This Ås refers to with the term house • Combining these we get a model of three facets of housing Three facets of housing (first version) The types of meaning housing has Concretisations Houses An object having a price and economic value exchange value Housing as a necessity to be purchased in a market; housing as investment; housing as a source of profit Dwellings An object that satisfies physical housing needs use value Housing as shelter; housing as a setting and enabler of activities Homes An object that satisfies symbolic housing needs symbolic value Housing as an expression of social identity; housing as a status symbol; housing satisfying the need for belonging What’s the use of this typology? • It is an ideal type that portrays analytically the possible general types of meaning that housing can have in market societies empirical cases are probably more messy • It can be used to analyse the actions of various actors in the housing field from residents making choices of moving or staying put to policy-makers deciding whether to develop asset-based welfare or not • Different actors orient their actions according to different types of meanings and constellations of meanings • Conflicts between actors can be understood as arising from different meanings they attach to housing: for one actor its just a case of houses whereas for another it is a question of homes • Of course, we don’t get very far with this, for example, we need theorization of social mechanisms that are responsible for the joint outcomes resulting from actions and interactions of various actors Some concluding thoughts • Sociology theorises action, institutions, structures and meanings theory in sociology of housing can utilise any of these as starting point • The kind of theory I think is desirable starts from action motivated by the shared meanings, happening in the context of the institutional order, performed by actors in different power positions • The style of theorisation I favour is analytical, aiming for clarity of concepts and development of typologies which are understood as ideal types that help order conceptually the messy reality • There is little mysticism in this kind of theorisation Thanks for your attention! If you want to publish a theoretical or a theoretically oriented empirical paper, try Housing, Theory and Society, published by Taylor & Francis four times a year!