This session brings you great discussion about photo-elicitation as a methodological approach, the concept of place-images, and resistance to rental reforms. The full abstracts are below.
Presentations from these authors and a live Q&A session are available to all HSA members. Book here
1. Adriana Mihaela Soaita and Kim McKee ‘Folding’ space, bridging horizons: the case for photo-elicitation in the study of home/housing
Drawing on participant-generated photo-elicitation in telephone interviews conducted with private tenants in Britain, we contribute to a new strand of home literature that engages with the vibrant materiality of things. In particular, the paper reflects on how our pioneering methodological approach empowered participants to introduce their own points of view through ‘thick’ descriptions, revealed previously undocumented home practices and enabled researchers’ reflexivity and the co-production of knowledge with participants located miles away. The method powerfully captures home’s tangible and intangible materialities and their importance to wellbeing in ways that words-alone interviews cannot. We conclude by introducing the metaphor of ‘the fold’ to reflect on the benefits of photo-elicitation in telephone interviewing by transporting the researcher into the participant’s home; and the allegory of ‘the invisible tether’ to reflect on differentials in tenants’ space of agency in constructing a sense of home in the UK’s private renting sector (PRS). We argue that housing studies can benefit from engaging photo-elicitation in questions spanning from the abstract to the concrete, and from the inside to the outside of the home.
2. Minki Jeong, Ed Ferrari & Ryan Powell Refractive spatialization and gentrification: Instagrammable spaces and the rearrangement of place-images
Building on the work of Henri Lefebvre and Rob Shields this paper introduces the concept of refractive spatialisation in describing and articulating the deep interconnections between urbanization, online space and the relational (re)making of place-images. The concept is coined in reference to the process through which symbolic space (online blog spaces) and physical space (the built environment of the neighbourhood) become co-dependent and co-generative in terms of rapid urban transformations driven by the touristification of previously mundane spaces. These processes are shown to alter the built environment and drive processes of gentrification in tandem with state-led infrastructure projects. Focusing on Yeonnam-Dong in Seoul in South Korea, the article shows how urban regeneration, the highly valorised authentic consumption tastes of competitive young urbanites, and the representation and rearrangement of place-images online interact in the re-making of place. This involves a transformation in the place-image of YD from an everyday “hidden”, working-class neighbourhood to an Instagrammable space produced and re-valued in relation to other places. It draws on analysis of urban regeneration efforts in Yeonnam-Dong from 2010-2018, online blog data over the same period, and qualitative interviews with cultural influencers and stakeholders.
3. Craig Gurney and Tom Simcock Bad apples, rogue tenants and blights on localities: a comparative analysis of the social construction of resistance to rental reforms across the UK
Across the UK the regulation of the private rented sector is diverging, re-converging, and under significant reform. Scotland has already implemented the end to “no fault” evictions for new tenancies, while in England the Government has recently announced plans to end S.21 “no fault” evictions. In contrast in Wales, the Government has recently consulted on extending the required notice period under the “no fault” s173 of the Renting Home (Wales) Act 2016 to 6 months. These reforms have received different responses from stakeholders from across the UK, with a conciliatory debate in Scotland, and more defensive resistance in England and Wales. Using a social constructionist framework, we undertake a critical discourse analysis of published responses to these actual and proposed reforms and highlight the contours of resistance to rental reforms by stakeholder organisations across the UK. We consider how this resistance is articulated identifying techniques, tools and tropes. We further consider the implications of these findings for research on the use of evidence by different policy networks to inform housing related policy.
