NEW ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS

Powell, R. and Flint, J. (2009) '(In)formalization and the civilizing process: Applying the work of Norbert Elias to housing-based anti-social behaviour interventions in the UK', Housing, Theory and Society, 26 (3), pp.159-178.

Robinson, D. (forthcoming) 'New immigrants and migrants in social housing in Britain: discursive themes and lived realities', Policy and Politics. Advanced access at: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/pap/pre-prints

NEW PUBLICATION FROM CIH

Homelessness in the UK: problems and solutions
Editors: Suzanne Fitzpatrick, Deborah Quilgars and Nicholas Pleace


Homelessness is one of the most distressing and visible of social problems, and the treatment of homeless people is often viewed as emblematic of a society’s commitment to social justice. Homelessness has been central to successive Labour governments’ ‘social exclusion’ agendas since they first took office in 1997, with street homelessness in particular given a very high policy profile. While devolution since 1999 has brought about significant divergence in homelessness policies across the UK, its prominence in public policy debates is shared across all four UK jurisdictions.

This book examines the contemporary nature of homelessness in the UK and responses to it, focusing on developments since 1997, but placing these in their broader historical context. It is research-based but policy-focused – emphasising those issues which are most relevant to housing students, policy-makers, and practitioners. It considers not only the ‘problems’ associated with homelessness, but also the ‘solutions’ that have been identified as effective means to prevent and/or address homelessness.

See the full publications list online at www.cih.org/publications

Order no: 129
Price: CIH member price £28.00 Non-member price £35.00

NEW ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS

Flint, J. (2009) 'Migrant Information Packs and the Colonisation of Civility in the UK', Space and Polity 13(2): 127-140.

Flint, J. (2009) 'Cultures, Ghettos and Camps: Sites of Exception and Antagonism in the City', Housing Studies 24(4): 417- 431.

Flint, J. (2009) 'Subversive Subjects and Conditional, Earned and Denied Citizenship', In M. Barnes and D. Prior (Eds.) Subversive Citizens: Power, Agency and Resistance in Public Services (Bristol: Policy Press), pp. 83-98.

Flint, J. (2009) On the Governance of Social Housing, in D. Czischke (Ed.) Urban Regeneration in Europe: The Place of Housing in Integrated Urban Policies- Current Perspectives (Brussels: CECODHAS European Social Housing Observatory), pp. 35- 44.

Flint, J. and Powell, R. (2009) 'Civilising Offensives: Education, Football and "Eradicating" Sectarianism in Scotland', In A. Millie (Ed.) Securing Respect: Behavioural Expectations and Anti-social Behaviour in the UK (Bristol: Policy Press), pp. 219-238

Levin, E. and Pryce, G. (2009) A regional house price model of excess demand for housing, RICS Research Report May 2009, ISBN: 978-1-84219-510-9.

McKee, K. (2009) 'Empowering Glasgow's Tenants through Community Ownership?' Local Economy 24(4): 299-309.

Murray , M, Houston , D, Keaveney, K, McKay, S, and Murtagh, B, (2009) 'Economic Diversification in the Countryside', Town Planning Review 80(2): 201-226.

Parr, S. and Nixon, J. (2009) 'Family Intervention Projects: Sites of Subversion and Resilience', In M. Barnes and D. Prior (Eds.) Subversive Citizens: Power, agency and resistance in public services (Bristol: Policy Press)

Pryce, G. and Sprigings, N. (2009) Outlook for UK housing and the implications for policy: Are we reaping what we have sown?, International Journal of Housing Market Analysis, 2(2): 145-166.

Pryce, G. (2009) Responding to the Impending Repossessions Crisis, Housing Analysis and Surveys Expert Panel Papers, 7, Communities and Local Government.

NEW ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS

Pryce, G. and Sprigings, N. (2009) Outlook for UK Housing and the Implications for Policy: Are we reaping what we have sown? International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis, Issue 2 2009

People Place and Policy Online

Volume 3, Issue 1 is now available free to download at www.ppp-online.org

Issue 1 contents:

The employment of graduates within small and medium sized firms in England - Trevor Hart and Paul Barratt

Learning lessons from stock transfer: the challenges in delivering second stage transfer in Glasgow - Kim McKee

Ecolocalisation as an urban strategy in the context of resource constraint and climate change – a (dangerous) new protectionism? - Peter North

A New Deal for Political Space: What effect could space have on attitudes to the New Deal for Communities? - Deirdre Duffy

How low should you go? Neighbourhood level interventions in the crime and community safety theme of New Deal for Communities - Sarah Pearson

Continuity or Change: what a future Conservative government might mean for regional, housing and welfare policies - Richard Crisp, Rob Macmillan, David Robinson and Peter Wells

NEW ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS

Flint, J. (2009) "Faith-based schools: institutionalising parallel lives?", in Dinham, A., Furbey, R. and Lowndes, V. (Eds) Faith in the Public Realm: Controversies, Policies and Practices (Bristol: Policy Press), pp. 163-182.

McKee, K. (2009) "Regulating Scotland's Social Landlords: localised resistance to technologies of performance management", Housing Studies 24 (2), pp. 155-171.

McKee, K. (2009) "The ‘Responsible’ Tenant and the Problem of Apathy" Social Policy and Society 8 (1), pp. 25-36.

New Academic Publications

Casey, R. (2008) “On Becoming a Social Housing Manager: work identities in an ‘invisible’ occupation”, Housing Studies 23 (5): 761 – 780.

Jeannot, G., Goodchild, B. and Hickman, P. (2008) ‘Les Nouveaux Métiers de la ville Pouvoirs Publics et Recherche Urbaine, Les Annales de la Recherche Urbain, No. 104 : 110-109.

Goodchild, B., Mboumoua, I, Hall, S, Hickman, P and Waeles, L. (2008) ‘Polarisation Sociale, Implication Habitante et Accès aux Services Publics Dans les Quartiers en Crise: Regards Croisés des Pratiques et Méthodes en France et en Angleterre’, in Aubertel, P. and Ménard, F. (eds) La Ville Pour Tous, Un Enjeu les Services Publics, pp 107-116, Plan Urbanisme Construction Architecture (PUCA), Paris.

Academic Publications of Interest

Flint, J. and Robinson, D. (eds) (2008) Community Cohesion in Crisis: New Dimensions of Diversity and Difference. Policy Press.

There is an alleged crisis of cohesion in the UK, manifested in debates about identity and ‘Britishness’, the breakdown of social connections along the fault lines of geography, ethnicity, faith, income and age, and the fragile relationship between citizen and state. This book examines how these new dimensions of diversity and difference, so often debated in the national context, are emerging at the neighbourhood level. Contributors from a range of disciplinary backgrounds critically assess, and go beyond the limits of, contemporary policy discourses on ‘community cohesion’ to explore the dynamics of diversity and cohesion within neighbourhoods and to identify new dimensions of disconnection between and within neighbourhoods. The chapters provide theoretically informed critiques of the policy responses of public, private, voluntary and community organisations and present a wealth of new empirical research evidence about the dynamics of cohesion in UK neighbourhoods. Topics covered include new immigration, religion and social capital, faith schools, labour and housing market disconnections, neighbourhood territoriality, information technology and neighbourhood construction, and gated communities.

McKee, K. (2008) Transforming Scotland's Public-Sector Housing through Community Ownership: The Reterritorialisation of Housing Governance? Space and Polity 12 (2): 183-196.

In recent decades, UK public-sector housing has increasingly been problematised, with government solutions focusing on modernising the sector by transferring ownership of the housing from the public to the voluntary sector through stock transfer. This promises to transform the organisation of social housing by devolving control from local government to housing organisations located within, and governed by, the communities in which they are based. The Scottish Executive's national housing policy of community ownership is the epitome of this governmental rationale par excellence. Drawing upon empirical research on the 2003 Glasgow housing stock transfer, this paper argues that, whilst community ownership is underpinned by governmental rationales that seek to establish community as the new territory of social housing governance, the realisation of these political ambitions has been marred by emergent central-local conflict. Paradoxically, the fragmentation of social housing through the break-up of municipal provision co-exists with continued political centralisation within the state apparatus.

Murie, A. & Rowlands, R. (2008) The new politics of urban housing Environment & Planning C 26(3): 644-659

The significant changes in housing policy in the UK over the last three decades have been widely described and discussed. Public housing has moved away from centre stage because of privatisation and the decline in new public sector building. In the last decade there has been a renewed concern to provide affordable housing, but policy has not reverted to the earlier model where the affordable-housing drive was led by local authorities and new towns. Instead, it has turned to the use of the planning system to deliver different kinds of affordable housing, and one consequence has been the advent of a different style and density of urban housing development. The authors address the change in housing provision from a perspective related to the politics of construction. They play off earlier work by Dunleavy, and contrast the new politics of urban housing with those described in the era prior to 1975. They draw on research on mixed-tenure developments and regional housing strategies in England, and suggest that there is a new technological and ideological shortcut which is affecting the pattern of housing in major urban areas. Although there are some profound differences from the era of mass housing, there are also some important similarities in the factors that underpin the new politics of urban housing. The authors discuss key issues and provide suggestions for future research.

Academic Publications

Casey, R. and Flint, J. (2008) 'Governing through localism, contract and community: evidence from anti-social behaviour strategies in Scotland' in Squires, P. (2008) ASBO Nation: The criminalisation of nuisance (Bristol: Policy Press), pp. 103-116.
This book chapter explores how forms of accountability, partnership and contract play out within anti-social behaviour strategies in Scotland. Two key dimensions are examined: the dual and simultaneous processes of centralisation and localism within governance frameworks; and the contested concepts of citizenship and responsibility for governing anti-social behaviour, mediated by the interface between formal and informal mechanisms of social control. The chapter concludes by arguing that the ambiguities of roles, limited scales of intervention, and the resistance of actors create a disjunction between strategy rationales and delivery on the ground.
Parr, S. and Nixon, J. (2008) 'Rationalising family intervention projects' in Squires, P. (2008) ASBO Nation: The criminalisation of nuisance (Bristol: Policy Press), pp. 161-178.
In this chapter, we draw on policy texts, newspaper reporting and rich data from a three year qualitative study of six Family Intervention Projects (FIPs) to explore the discursive field in which the projects are conceptualised. In so doing, we unpack the political rationality that underpins and shapes FIP policy, and make explicit the moral justifications that are employed, the way in which target families are problematised and the presupposed distribution of tasks among governing authorities. While locating our analysis within a governmentality framework, we accept that processes of governance are fraught with contradiction and discontinuities with the outcome by no means certain. The chapter therefore also focuses on the ways in which the FIP political rationality is mediated, contested and challenged by reference to media representations and the views of project staff and partner agencies on the role of FIPs in the governance of conduct.

Powell, R. (2008) “Understanding the Stigmatization of Gypsies: Power and the Dialectics of (Dis)identification”, Housing, Theory and Society 25 (2): 87-109.Most theorizations on the stigmatization of Gypsies have centred on structural factors: issues of race, ethnicity, the role of the media and the general incompatibility of nomadism with a sedentary mode of existence. Drawing on the work of Norbert Elias this paper contends that a focus on the power differentials which characterize everyday social relations between Gypsies and the settled population can enhance our understanding of the stigmatization of the former. The paper focuses on the dialectics of identification articulated by Gypsies in relation to their perceived collective similarity and difference, which is crucial in understanding their marginal position in British society. Using empirical data, the paper then explores the ways in which power differentials shape the social relations between Gypsies and the settled population, and how stigmatization serves as a potent weapon in maintaining the weak position of British Gypsies.

McKee, K. and Cooper, V. (2003) “The Paradox of Tenant Empowerment: regulatory and liberatory possibilities?” Housing, Theory and Society 25 (2): 132-146.Tenant empowerment has traditionally been regarded as a means of realising democratic ideals: a quantitative increase in influence and control, which thereby enables "subjects" to acquire the fundamental properties of "citizens". By contrast governmentality, as derived from the work of Michel Foucault, offers a more critical appraisal of the concept of empowerment by highlighting how it is itself a mode of subjection and means of regulating human conduct towards particular ends. Drawing on empirical data about how housing governance has changed in Glasgow following its 2003 stock transfer, this paper adopts the insights of governmentality to illustrate how the political ambition of community ownership has been realized through the mobilization and shaping of active tenant involvement in the local decision-making process. In addition, it also traces the tensions and conflict inherent in the reconfiguration of power relations post-transfer for "subjects" do not necessarily conform to the plans of those that seek to govern them.

New Academic Publications

Paddison, R.; Docherty, I. and Goodlad, R. (2008) “Responsible Participation and Housing: restoring democratic theory to the scene, Housing Studies 23(1): 129-147.

This article focuses on the challenges posed for representative democracy both by participatory democratic practices and by the current emphasis on (so-called) responsible participation. Based on the example of ‘community’ housing associations in Scotland, this paper explores these tensions. It is argued that the critique of responsibility may have been overstated, that, in particular, ‘community’ housing associations offer the basis for relatively more inclusive and effective processes of decision making than council housing, which relies on the traditional processes and institutions of representative local government for its legitimacy.

Flint, J. (2008) 'Governing Sectarianism in Scotland', Scottish Affairs, 63: 107-124.

This article focuses on the contemporary emergence of the governance of sectarianism in Scotland and draws parallels between the Respect and community cohesion agendas in England and Wales. It argues that the similarity lies in the ambitious attempt to bring about cultural shifts in populations and to recode social conduct. These ambitions and actions of government raise important questions about how citizenship and national identity are constructed in Scotland.