A note on researcher positionality - for housing studies 2026

 A note on researcher positionality - for housing studies 2026

 

In the context of doing housing studies dissertation projects, highlight 4 main ideas of "researcher positionality", and explain briefly how it affects (i) the choice of research philosophy to use, (ii) the types of research issues and public media-reported issues to address, (iii) the types of research objectives and questions to address, and (iv) the design of research methods.

Researcher positionality means recognising that a researcher’s identity, experiences, values, assumptions, and social location shape what they study, how they study it, and how they interpret findings. In a housing studies dissertation, it is not simply a “bias statement”: it is a methodological lens that should be declared and managed throughout the project.

Four main ideas

1.    Situated knowledge and social location
A researcher is never a neutral outsider. Their housing status, class background, ethnicity, gender, age, professional role, and prior experience of housing problems shape what they notice, whom they trust, and which explanations they find persuasive.

2.    Values, assumptions, and prior beliefs
Researchers bring assumptions about, for example, whether housing shortage is mainly a supply problem, a welfare-state failure, a market problem, or a rights issue. These assumptions can influence the framing of a problem, the literature selected, and the interpretation of evidence.

3.    Insider–outsider relationships and power
Positionality includes the researcher’s relationship with participants and institutions. A student researching public housing may be an outsider to residents but an insider to university-based policy discourse; this affects access, rapport, power dynamics, and what participants are willing to disclose.

4.    Reflexivity as an ongoing practice
Positionality should be examined continuously, not only stated once in a methodology chapter. Reflexive researchers ask how their role, questions, interview style, sampling choices, and analytical interpretations may privilege some voices while marginalising others.

Effects on the dissertation

Dissertation element	How researcher positionality affects it	Housing-studies example
(i) Research philosophy	A researcher who sees housing experiences as socially constructed and context-dependent is likely to adopt an interpretivist or constructivist philosophy. One who treats housing outcomes as measurable, generalisable phenomena may lean toward positivism or post-positivism. A researcher concerned with inequality and structural power may adopt a critical realist or critical theory orientation. research.ed.ac+1	“How do sub-divided-flat residents experience overcrowding?” points toward interpretivism; “What factors predict satisfaction with public rental housing?” points toward a more positivist approach.
(ii) Research issues and media-reported issues	Positionality influences which problems appear important and whose perspective is foregrounded. It can lead a researcher to examine issues reported in the media—such as homelessness, sub-divided flats, land supply, ageing public estates, or housing affordability—through a particular social or political lens. rune.une.edu+2	A researcher with experience of precarious private renting may prioritise tenant insecurity; a researcher focused on urban regeneration may foreground redevelopment displacement.
(iii) Objectives and questions	Personal and theoretical commitments shape the purpose, scope, and wording of research questions. They determine whether the study seeks to measure causes, understand lived experience, evaluate policy, expose inequality, or recommend reform. journals.sagepub+2	Instead of only asking “Is public housing adequate?”, a positionality-aware study may ask: “How do low-income tenants experience and navigate housing insecurity, and whose interests are served by current allocation rules?”
(iv) Research methods	Positionality affects sampling, participant recruitment, interview questions, observation roles, ethical safeguards, analytical categories, and dissemination. It also affects whether the researcher uses surveys, interviews, ethnography, archival/policy analysis, or mixed methods. sage.cnpereading+3	A researcher studying informal housing may use semi-structured interviews and participant observation, with reflexive memos, rather than relying only on official statistics that may undercount marginalised households.

Practical application

In your dissertation, include a short positionality statement that explains:

• Why you are personally and academically interested in the housing issue.
• Your relevant background, values, and assumptions.
• Your relationship to participants, housing agencies, or the policy field.
• How you will reduce undue influence—for example, through triangulation, member checking, reflexive journaling, transparent coding, and seeking disconfirming evidence.

For instance, if you are researching housing affordability in Hong Kong, state whether you approach it primarily as a market-affordability problem, a public-housing supply problem, a social-equity issue, or a planning/governance issue. Then explain how interviews, survey design, case selection, and interpretation are structured to test that perspective rather than merely confirm it.

A note on an environmental cost report and its 4 cost categories: for advanced management accounting students

A note on an environmental cost report and its 4 cost categories: for advanced management accounting students

 

In the subject of advanced management accounting, I learned that an environmental cost report includes the following 4 cost categories: environmental prevention costs, environmental detection costs, environmental internal failure costs and environmental external failure costs. Please provide 4 examples on each of the 4 cost categories, and explain why the examples are considered as belonging to their respective cost categories.

 

Environmental costs are classified by when they occur relative to pollution: before waste is created (prevention), while checking compliance (detection), after waste is created but before release (internal failure), and after release into the environment (external failure).

Environmental prevention costs

These are costs incurred before contaminants or waste are produced, to avoid environmental damage in the first place.

Example	Why it belongs here
Designing a product to use fewer hazardous materials	The design change prevents waste and pollution from being created during production.
Selecting suppliers based on their environmental standards	Choosing cleaner suppliers prevents environmentally harmful inputs from entering the company’s operations.
Training employees on waste reduction and safe chemical handling	Training changes employee behaviour so that less waste, spillage, or contamination is generated.
Installing energy-efficient production equipment during process redesign	More efficient equipment reduces energy use and emissions before the production process creates pollution.

 

Environmental detection costs

These are costs incurred to measure, inspect, audit, or test whether products, processes, and activities comply with environmental regulations or voluntary standards. They identify potential problems but do not themselves remove the pollution.

Example	Why it belongs here
Testing factory wastewater for chemical contaminants	Testing determines whether the wastewater meets permitted standards; it detects a possible non-compliance.
Inspecting production processes for emissions or leaks	Inspection checks whether operations are complying with environmental requirements before any problem is released.
Conducting an internal environmental audit	The audit evaluates whether the company’s activities meet legal and voluntary environmental standards.
Measuring air-emission levels at a plant boundary	Measurement establishes the extent of pollution and whether it exceeds permitted limits.

Environmental internal failure costs

These are costs incurred after waste or contaminants have been produced but before they are discharged into the external environment. The company must contain, treat, recycle, or otherwise manage the waste internally.

Example	Why it belongs here
Treating toxic wastewater on site before discharge	The wastewater has already been generated, but treatment prevents it from being released untreated.
Operating pollution-control equipment, such as scrubbers or filters	The equipment captures or reduces pollutants produced by operations before they leave the factory.
Recycling production scrap and defective materials	The scrap already exists, but recycling keeps it from becoming external waste.
Maintaining pollution-control equipment	Maintenance is needed so the equipment can continue to prevent contaminants from being discharged.

Environmental external failure costs

These are costs incurred after contaminants or waste have been discharged into the environment. They include cleanup, restoration, legal liability, compensation, and reputational or sales losses.

Example	Why it belongs here
Cleaning up an oil spill in a river	The pollution has already escaped into the environment, so the company must remediate it externally.
Restoring contaminated soil at a former factory site	The contamination has already occurred and the company must repair the environmental damage.
Paying fines or compensation for environmental damage	These costs arise after a discharge or breach has caused harm, rather than preventing or detecting it.
Losing sales because customers perceive the company as environmentally irresponsible	This is an external consequence of pollution that has already occurred; it affects the company’s relationship with the market.

Quick distinction

Category	Timing		Core question
Category		Timing		Core question
Prevention		Before waste is created		“How do we stop pollution from arising?”
Detection		During operations		“Are we complying with environmental standards?”
Internal failure		After waste is created, before release		“How do we handle waste before it leaves the company?”
External failure		After release		“How do we deal with pollution that has already escaped?”

A useful exam rule is: prevention avoids creation; detection checks compliance; internal failure handles waste before release; external failure responds after release.

A note on the visual research method of participatory mapping: for Housing Studies students

A note on the visual research method of participatory mapping: for Housing Studies students

 

Highlight 5 main ideas of the visual research method of participatory mapping in the context of Housing Studies dissertation study, and then describe the main steps of practising it.

Participatory mapping is a visual, collaborative research method in which residents co-create maps of their housing and neighbourhood experiences. In a Housing Studies dissertation, it can reveal how tenants or residents perceive housing quality, safety, accessibility, social networks, service gaps, and place attachment in ways that conventional surveys may miss.

Five main ideas

1.    Residents are knowledge-holders, not merely subjects. Participants contribute their lived spatial knowledge about their estate, neighbourhood, routes, amenities, risks, and social relationships; the researcher’s role is to facilitate rather than impose an expert interpretation.

2.    Maps make lived experience visible. A hand-drawn map, annotated base map, photo map, or participatory GIS map can show features such as unsafe stairwells, poor lift access, crowded communal areas, informal gathering spaces, or barriers to services. Visual mapping is engaging and can give local stakeholders a new perspective on their environment.

3.    The process is as important as the final map. Participants explain, negotiate, and debate what they draw; their discussion becomes qualitative data alongside the visual output. Mapping therefore moves from description to elaboration and theorising about why housing and neighbourhood conditions matter.

4.    It supports participation and empowerment. By involving residents in identifying issues, selecting what to represent, analysing the map, and communicating findings, the method can build ownership and amplify voices that are often marginalised in housing policy and planning.

5.    It connects housing with wider social-spatial contexts. A housing map can link dwelling conditions to transport, employment, health, community facilities, safety, green space, and social cohesion. This makes it useful for examining housing inequality, estate regeneration, tenant wellbeing, or neighbourhood change.

Main steps

1. Define the research focus

Set a focused question, for example: “How do public-housing residents in Fanling perceive safety, accessibility, and social life in their estate?” Identify the participant group—such as tenants, older residents, carers, or youth—and decide whether the mapping will be individual, small-group, or workshop-based. Clear objectives, realistic expectations, and transparent communication should be established before fieldwork.

2. Obtain ethics approval and prepare materials

Prepare an information sheet, consent form, privacy safeguards, and a plan for anonymising locations or personal details. Prepare accessible materials: a base map of the estate or neighbourhood, blank paper, coloured markers, sticky notes, a camera or phone for photo-elicitation, and an interview guide. Explain the research purpose and what participants will be asked to do before the session.

3. Recruit and build rapport

Recruit a diverse but manageable group of residents, while being clear about who is included and who may be excluded. Build trust through a neutral venue, plain-language explanations, and an opening discussion about participants’ everyday housing experiences before asking them to map. Ethical questions about why people participate, who participates, and how they participate should be considered from the outset.

4. Co-create the maps

Ask participants to mark places, routes, problems, and assets on the map—for example, “places you feel safe,” “areas with poor lighting,” “bus stops you rely on,” or “spaces where neighbours meet.” Encourage them to use symbols, colours, drawings, photographs, or labels. The facilitator should ask open questions such as: “Why is this place important?”, “What happens here?”, and “What would you change?”

5. Record the discussion

With consent, audio-record the session and, if appropriate, photograph the completed maps. The map alone is not sufficient data: participants’ explanations, disagreements, pauses, and collective discussion are central to interpreting what the visual representation means.

6. Analyse maps and narratives together

Code both the visual elements and the interview transcripts. Look for recurring themes—for example, overcrowding, maintenance failures, isolation, community support, transport barriers, or fear of crime. Where possible, return the maps or preliminary findings to participants to check whether the interpretation reflects their intended meaning.

7. Interpret and use findings

Compare participants’ maps across households, estates, age groups, or tenure types to identify shared and divergent housing experiences. Then connect the findings to your dissertation argument—for example, how estate design, management practices, or regeneration proposals affect residents’ everyday wellbeing—and consider presenting the maps to housing managers, community groups, or policymakers.

Example application

For a study of an ageing public-housing estate, residents could map “safe and unsafe routes,” “places where I feel isolated,” and “services I cannot reach easily.” The resulting maps might show that a physically nearby clinic is inaccessible because of steep slopes, poor lift provision, or confusing signage—turning a seemingly simple access issue into evidence about housing design, mobility, and health inequality.

 

Provide 3 academic references on this topic, in Harvard reference format.

Below are three suitable academic references on participatory mapping, participatory GIS, and community mapping that can support a Housing Studies dissertation. Harvard style normally uses an author–date in-text citation and a full reference list entry.

Reference list

Dunn, C.E. (2007) ‘Participatory GIS: a people’s GIS?’, Progress in Human Geography, 31(5), pp. 613–637.

Elwood, S. (2006) ‘Critical issues in participatory GIS: deconstructions, reconstruction, and new research directions’, Transactions in GIS, 10(5), pp. 693–708.

Parker, B. (2006) ‘Constructing community through maps? Power and expatriation in the cartography of community’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 96(3), pp. 589–608.

How to cite them

Use the author–date format in the text, for example:

·        Dunn (2007) argues that participatory GIS can make local spatial knowledge more visible in planning and research.

·        Elwood (2006) highlights that participatory mapping is not politically neutral because decisions about what is mapped and by whom shape the resulting knowledge.

·        Parker (2006) shows that community mapping can both empower residents and expose tensions over whose version of place is represented.

Note for your dissertation

Check your university’s specific Harvard guide before submission, as punctuation, italics, and the use of ‘and’ versus ‘&’ can vary between institutions.

A note of “thick description” in qualitative research: for Housing Studies students

A note of “thick description” in qualitative research: for Housing Studies students

 

Highlight 5 main ideas on the qualitative research topic of "thick description" of Clifford Geertz, as well as the main steps involved in producing the "thick description in the context of Housing Studies dissertation projects.

 

“Thick description” is Clifford Geertz’s interpretive approach to qualitative research: it explains not only what people do, but the meanings, relationships, histories, and social contexts that make their actions intelligible. In a Housing Studies dissertation, it means presenting housing experiences as lived, situated practices rather than as isolated facts about rent, tenure, or dwelling conditions.

Five main ideas

1.    Interpretation, not merely observation.
Geertz treats culture as a “web of significance”: the researcher’s task is to interpret the meanings people attach to actions, objects, and relationships. A housing dissertation should therefore move beyond recording that residents queue for public housing or share flats, and explain what those practices mean for identity, security, family obligation, status, or belonging.

2.    Thin versus thick description.
A thin description states the observable act: “A resident pays rent late.” A thick description situates it: late payment may reflect precarious gig work, caring responsibilities, benefit delays, distrust of the landlord, or a culturally specific strategy for managing household finances. Geertz’s famous example distinguishes an involuntary eye twitch from a deliberate wink: identical physical movements can carry very different social meanings.

3.    Context is analytically central.
Thick description requires close attention to the setting, participants, relationships, timing, material environment, and wider structures in which an event occurs. For Housing Studies, this includes the estate’s history, housing policy, tenure rules, neighbourhood networks, family arrangements, labour-market conditions, and the physical condition of the home.

4.    Multiple perspectives and reflexivity matter.
The researcher must include participants’ own accounts while recognising that their interpretation is also shaped by their position—such as being a student, tenant, professional, outsider, or member of the community. Reflexivity means explaining how assumptions, language, access, and relationships with residents may affect what is seen and interpreted.

5.    Rich evidence supports transferability, not statistical generalisation.
Thick description does not claim that findings apply mechanically to all housing contexts. Instead, it gives readers enough contextual detail to judge whether the findings might be relevant, or “transferable,” to comparable housing settings, groups, or policies.

Applying it in Housing Studies

For example, a dissertation on overcrowded private rental housing in Hong Kong could produce thick description by showing how a subdivided flat is not simply “small living space.” It could examine how residents negotiate shared kitchens and bathrooms, how children do homework in constrained space, how landlords and agents exercise control, how family members manage privacy, and how residents interpret the flat as temporary, shameful, practical, or a necessary route to saving money. This connects everyday dwelling practices to housing precarity, migration, family strategies, and policy failure.

Main steps

Step	What to do in a Housing Studies dissertation
1. Define a focused research question	Specify the housing phenomenon and its interpretive puzzle, e.g., “How do low-income tenants in subdivided flats make sense of home, privacy, and security?”
2. Select an appropriate qualitative design	Use interviews, ethnographic observation, home tours, document analysis, or longitudinal repeat interviews; choose methods capable of capturing lived experience and context.
3. Gather contextual data	Collect policy documents, estate/property records, neighbourhood observations, photographs where ethical, housing histories, and background information on tenure, income, household composition, and local services.
4. Conduct in-depth fieldwork	Use open-ended interviews, participant observation, and detailed field notes. Record not only events but also interactions, emotions, silences, spatial arrangements, and participants’ explanations.
5. Capture participants’ meanings	Ask “how,” “why,” “for whom,” and “what does this mean to you?” questions. Use verbatim quotations and participants’ own categories, while comparing accounts across participants.
6. Code iteratively and develop interpretations	Read transcripts closely, code for practices, meanings, relationships, constraints, and contradictions; move repeatedly between data and emerging interpretations.
7. Write layered, contextualised accounts	Present a vivid but disciplined account: describe the setting and action, then explain its social meaning and connect it to housing theory, policy, or wider structural conditions.
8. Reflect on positionality and ethics	State your relationship to participants and setting, acknowledge possible biases, protect anonymity, and avoid over-disclosing details that could identify residents or estates.
9. Justify transferability	Explain the boundaries of the case: which features of the housing context, participant group, and institutional setting make the findings potentially relevant elsewhere.

Practical writing formula

A useful dissertation formula is:

Observable practice + situational context + participant meaning + wider housing structure = thick description.

For instance: “Mrs Chan stores her bedding in the corridor each morning” becomes: “Mrs Chan stores her bedding in the corridor each morning because the partitioned sleeping area cannot accommodate it; she describes this as ‘making do,’ while also explaining that it reflects her unwillingness to complain to the landlord for fear of eviction. The practice illustrates how insecure tenancy and chronic space shortage reshape ordinary domestic routines.” This is thick description because it links a visible act to meanings, relationships, and structural housing conditions.

What to avoid

·        Treating “thick description” as simply writing more words or adding irrelevant detail.

·        Presenting residents’ statements without explaining their social and institutional context.

·        Claiming universal conclusions from one housing estate or small sample.

·        Ignoring the researcher’s role in producing the account.

·        Using identifying details that could compromise participant confidentiality.

In short, thick description in a Housing Studies dissertation is a disciplined interpretive account that makes housing practices understandable in their full human, spatial, institutional, and policy context.

 

Provide 3 academic references on this topic, in Harvard reference format.

Here are three academically appropriate references in Harvard referencing format for a Housing Studies dissertation using Geertz’s concept of thick description.

References

Geertz, C. (1973) ‘Thick description: toward an interpretive theory of culture’, in Geertz, C. (ed.) The interpretation of cultures: selected essays. New York: Basic Books, pp. 3–30.

Ponterotto, J.G. (2006) ‘Brief note on the origins, evolution, and meaning of the qualitative research concept “thick description”’, The Qualitative Report, 11(3), pp. 538–549. doi:10.46743/2160-3715/2006.1666.

Parsell, C. (2012) ‘“Home is where the house is”: the meaning of home for people sleeping rough’, Housing Studies, 27(2), pp. 159–173.

Why these sources fit

·        Geertz (1973) is the foundational source for thick description, explaining how qualitative researchers interpret the cultural meanings and contexts behind observable actions.

·        Ponterotto (2006) clarifies the origins, evolution, and practical use of thick description in qualitative research, including guidance for presenting it in written reports.

·        Parsell (2012) applies a qualitative, meaning-centred approach to housing and homelessness, making it especially relevant for a Housing Studies dissertation concerned with lived housing experiences.

In-text citation examples

·        “Thick description seeks to interpret the meanings that make social action intelligible (Geertz, 1973).”

·        “Ponterotto (2006) argues that thick description requires contextual detail rather than mere elaboration.”

·        “Housing research can use thick description to examine how marginalised residents construct meanings of home and security (Parsell, 2012).”