Housing in Hard times

I went to my first academic conference a couple of weeks ago at the Housing Studies Association Conference at York University. It was called Housing in Hard times: Class, poverty and social exclusion. The fact that class was actually in the title really excited me. Having worked on the equalities scheme and our inclusive design agenda at the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment I quickly learned that class was almost impossible to talk about. It was like the elephant in the room while we talked about sexuality, race, gender and disability.

The conference kicked off with Dr Gerry Mooney from the Open University, who talked about the language  of 'Broken Britain' used by the Coalition government, how it stigmatises working class people and borrows from the Victorian idea of the undeserving and deserving poor. The welfare state is presented as a failure, creating dependency, and instigating a ‘moral’ crisis in working class people. The solution is seen to be the pulling out of welfare provision, with what remains based on sanctions rather than help. I thought Gerry’s argument was really thought provoking, accessible and real. For me, he showed the need to constantly question the language of blame, while also developing the evidence to show how increasing inequality cannot be blamed solely on the individual but that there are broader social, economic and political forces that shape people’s lives.

From this point onwards, I found the conference quite challenging (this is probably a good thing!) Discussions about class seemed to fall into academic language and theory that is useful but at the same time out of the reach of most people and - dare I say it - pretty elitist. I felt uncomfortable, partly because I couldn’t really engage in the argument, but also because I’m not sure what this type of academia actually does. It could be argued that it doesn’t have to do anything, academia doesn’t have to be about practice or change outside of the pursuit of knowledge within the university. However, the conference wasn’t just about academia, it was about influencing policy and practice too.

Several academics called for action and there was some level of agreement that housing researchers have a responsibility to try and influence and change things. In fact some of the same academics who had written very theory heavy papers criticised Shelter for becoming part of the system. But there seems to be a bit of a contradiction here? Should housing academics really criticise organisations who are very active in tackling issues around good quality housing for everyone? And further, how far can this criticism be answered when it is turned back on academic researchers. Are we really that radical?