The Social Forces And Politics Of Housing Research In UK & Australia
Introduction:
One of our main objectives in writing this paper is to subject both ourselves and Australian politics of housing research to this kind of critical gaze. Such a task, in our view, is important since the discourses and structures that inform housing research in Australia are rarely interrogated or aired (see Winter & Seelig 2001). As such, there is a paucity of discussion about the opportunities and constraints surrounding housing research and its utility in terms of policy, that is to say the role of government in creating mechanisms and modes of intervention that support a notion of public good and social equity in opportunities and outcomes.
In this paper, we draw upon our experiences of the UK and Australian policy environments to make a series of tentative observations about the current state of politics of housing research. We explore the political constraints that confront academic researchers by reflecting on how the changes within academia, styles of policymaking, and nature of public engagement/publication affect the relative ability of academics to view themselves as progressive forces contained by these complex forces in tension.
We argue that the promotion of a more critical and less politics of housing research agenda requires a more proactive response from the academic community than has hitherto been the case. We conclude that the politics of housing research production in Australia presents a distinctive set of issues that require attention; particularly a fragmented approach to social problems that has accentuated a silo approach to housing research focused on individual State responses, rather than concerted national action on social problems in this arena.
Homo academicus or Homo domus? Academics as Agents of Social or Policy Transformation?
An assessment of why we do what we do, how we do it and who we engage with has become a more contentious arena for discussion as policy regimes are re-made (such as the move to evidence-based policy-making under the Blair government), and universities are restructured and re-incentivized in ways that do, and do not, value community engagement over other work, particularly academic writing and grant getting. Perhaps the nub of this issue can be summarized by a series of important framing questions:
1. On what rules and norms should we agree that university research should be carried out?
2. Which social problems, populations and vulnerable groups should we have in mind in carrying out such research and on whose say so?
3. What means and mechanisms can we concur are the most effective in yielding more socially equitable outcomes?
Structures that Inform Politics Of Housing Research:
As one of our aims is to highlight some of the influences, power relations and structures that inform commissioned politics of housing research, it is necessary to consider the formal rules and procedures of research funding agencies, such as The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI). It is these funding mechanisms, in conjunction with the institutional environments of universities and State Housing Authorities that shape some of the fundamental practices of politics of housing research. Most commissioned politics of housing research relies on a competitive framework which relies largely on the peer review and assessment of individual projects.
Academic Perspectives:
In many ways the Australian academic context is similar to that of the UK insofar as publishing in peer reviewed journals and capturing politics of housing research income are accorded significant weight and prestige. Recent proposals by the former Commonwealth Government for a Research Quality Framework akin to the UK’s Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) were axed by the incoming Rudd Government in 2008, which will use only a simplified system based on politics of housing research metrics and other indicators.
Implications: The Politics Of Housing Research Interface:
In a recent article which provided a strongly critical account of contract housing research, Allen argued that funding institutions are able to exercise a ‘‘disciplinary gaze’’ that reinforces a docility within the research community. Allen draws from the work of Foucault in developing his argument, suggesting that the pressure on academic staff to win research consultancies and generate research income for their universities has had significant implications for the conduct of research.
Ways Out?
Perhaps the answer to some of the challenges we have identified lies in supporting more policy-savvy researchers capable of working as media-operators and engineering high impact research. However, this also implies a mutual contract in which policymakers should be responsive to normative, thoughtful and critical responses to the problems they face. To this end a theoretically informed approach to housing issues and further dialogue with policymaking communities is essential and is often well-received by practitioners as something relevant to but outside the daily experience of frontline work.
Conclusion:
Our response to the issues we raise here and in the Australian context is to pose a number of tentative questions and issues for further debate. In particular, what might be done about the way that housing contract research operates in practice? At one extreme lies the belief that an inherently short-term political culture surveils and disciplines contract researchers.
However, as Allen argues, this comes both from within us as well as from perceptions about the constraints imposed by funders. At the other end of the spectrum lies a position which sees contract research as an important tool for policymaking and which provides evidence to act strategically and incrementally to produce results which significantly address social problems. Clearly a blend of these positions reflects the reality, but also a reality which shifts from contract to contract, from one policy funder to another and from one researcher’s collegiate affiliation to another.