Hacking housing: theorising housing from the minor

Abstract

Housing futures are increasingly diverse as they are reshaped by the intersecting forces of unaffordability, labour precarity and digital disruption. Despite this diversity, the way we think about housing has largely remained tied to frameworks that fit traditional housing markets and governance. While these give valuable insights into the structural form of housing systems, they are less appropriate for understanding the myriad of ways these changes are responded to and experienced on the ground. In this essay, I argue that we need more-than political economy approaches to understand the rapidly changing housing landscape. I pose the housing hack as a way of theorising housing from the minor, assisting in identifying ruptures in housing experiences and taking them seriously as a way to think between major narratives on housing, to show desires and possibilities previously unaccounted for, and to glimpse alternative housing possibilities. I propose the housing hack as useful for doing conceptual, analytical and speculative work demanded of thinking through these changes in housing. While hacks do not always do good, they are useful for revealing what is broken and in their workarounds can point to generative possibilities and alternative housing futures.

Keywords:

• Hacking
• minor theory
• digital disruption
• political economy
• alternative housing models

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Thank you to members of the Urban Housing Lab for bringing out these points during discussion in response to me presenting my research.

2 Thank you to Frank Stilwell for raising this in response to a seminar I presented on the topic in 2021.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Australian Research Council grant DE200100259.