Housing Theory and Society aims to bring to our readers theoretically informed and methodologically rigorous studies which progress housing policy and research. In pursuit of this HTS uses the form of the Focus article to reflect on emerging approaches, stimulate critical debate and progress relevant policy development. As these articles sometimes emanate from outside the field of housing studies, over the past few years HTS has been reaching outwards to scholars across a range of disciplines around the world, with discussions taking place at various conferences in dedicated housing theory workshops across Asia, Australasia, North America and Europe.
The role of housing in a well-lived life is the subject matter this issue’s focus article entitled “How to apply the capability approach to housing policy? Concepts, theories and challenge.” The paper was first presented in draft by Boram Kim to the re-invigorated Housing and Social Theory Workshop – an event directly supported by HTS at the ENHR conference in Uppsala 2018. This Workshop continued to run as part of the ENHR Athens conference in 2019 and will soon return to Nicosia in 2020. Kim’s original paper has since been refined following input from the workshop. It has been a pleasure for David Clapham and I to work with Boram and bring together a range of enthusiastic and expert commentators, to which she has responded to this issue. Together, their discussion lifts the debate that serves the development of housing studies in a meaningful way.
The Capability Approach has been influential in international development studies and is now central to the development of a Human Development Index and the United Nations Human Development Report Approach. So far, it has not transformed the approach of housing researchers or related areas of policy development. Kim’s paper explains the key features of the Capability Approach and examines its implications for housing studies and suggests how it can be applied. She suggests specific areas in this realm: multi-dimensional capability deprivations; evaluation of the extent to which capabilities are enhanced or adversely affected; and giving a focus for marginalized groups and their level of agency.
The article has provoked responses from a range of commentators working in the field of housing, but with roots in social policy, law and urban studies: Batterham, Fitzpatrick, Foye, Hemerijck, McCallum, Papadopoulos, Taylor and Watts. Their comments raise further areas for debate concerning the role of housing policies within dynamic welfare states and in affecting citizen’s social rights, life chances and their distribution. The contributions have also focused attention on the role of ethics in housing research, alternative notions of social justice, equity, freedom and responsibility and the role of scholars in this process. Indeed, the epistemological foundations of the Capability Approach are also subject to critique. While the process of achieving the good life of individual well-being is central to most conceptions of the Capability Approach, this individuality is confronted head-on by Hemerijck (this issue) who places the founding and dynamic principles of the modern welfare state in a broader context, and challenges the emphasis on individual agency-based capability deprivation and points to frameworks emphasizing co-operation and social solidarity.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank Boram Kim and all invited commentators and wish our readers a thought-provoking journey, reflecting on their own housing research and practice.