Power, discursive space and institutional practices in the construction of housing problems
Jacobs, Keith and Kemeny, Jim and Manzi, Tony (2003) Power, discursive space and institutional practices in the construction of housing problems. Housing Studies, 18 (4). pp. 429-446. ISSN 0267-3037 | PDF - Full text restricted - Requires a PDF viewer 133Kb | |
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02673030304252 AbstractA constructionist approach to the study of social problems and housing
policy provides a theoretically informed means of analysing the ways in which housing policy is formulated and implemented. Yet despite a strong commitment by housingresearchers to policy relevance, constructionist studies of how specific social problems are generated and deployed have so far made only a limited impact on housing research. Thepaper addresses this lacuna by first discussing important literature and the keyconceptual issues in this field of study. This is followed by a discussion of two examplesfrom recent UK housing policy (the shift in the 1980s from defining lone mothers as thevictims of housing shortages to a morally questionable group subverting needs-basedallocation policies and the re-emergence of anti-social behaviour as a problem on housingestates). The paper’s conclusion is that the ‘construction of problems’ provides a rich
source of new material as well as offering significant opportunities to develop a morecritically informed housing research agenda. Repository Staff Only: item control page
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