Tuesday 10 April 2018

An updated exposition on the subject of housing imagination(s)

An updated exposition on the subject of housing imagination(s)

Joseph, K.K. Ho
Dated: April 10, 2018

Abstract: Since the launching of the subject of Housing Imaginations in 2013, the writer has accumulated teaching and research knowledge on it and the closely associated subject of Housing Imagination. This article offers an updated account of their status together and named this combined form of study as Housing Imagination(s). This updated account on the teaching and research experience on Housing Imagination(s) as at 2018 let readers in the housing studies and contemporary systems thinking fields to comprehend this novel intellectual venture in these two fields.

Key words: Critical Systems Thinking, Human Geography, Housing Imagination, Housing Imaginations, Housing Imagination(s), Housing Studies, Sociological Imagination.



Introduction
The intellectual theme of housing imaginations was initially conceived in early 2000s, as attested by the British Housing Studies Association Autumn Conference held at Cardiff University, UK on September 4-5, 2001 (Ronald, 2002). This conference explicitly endorsed C. Wright Mills' "aspiration in The Sociological Imagination (1959)[1] to develop "intellectual craftsmanship" across the social sciences" (Ronald, 2002) and encouraged intellectual endeavor by the academic housing community to redress the concern expressed by some academicians, notably Jim Kemeny, at that time on "the lack of theoretical progression in housing studies" (Ronald, 2002). The subject of Housing Imaginations itself was first formulated by the school of Built Environment of Leeds Metropolitan University (now renamed as Lees Beckett University) in 2013 for the BA(Hons) Housing Studies. According to its Module Guide 2013/14, the subject's aim is to: "To provide opportunities for students to understand the many and different ways in which housing may be perceived by different interests. To develop understandings of how people and place are connected. To foster an understanding of the multiple ways in which social space and place may be represented and communicated" (Leeds Metropolitan University, 2013). In 2014, this writer was the teacher of this new subject in Hong Kong. Out of the teaching and research interest on this subject, this writer offered his exposition of the subject via the lens of critical systems thinking to come up with the subject of Housing Imagination (Ho, 2014a). By now, the teacher has accumulated about four years of teaching and study of this subject. It is thus useful to provide in this paper an updated exposition on the subject. As the name of the original subject is called Housing Imaginations while the version postulated by this writer is named Housing Imagination, a combined name is coined for them as Housing Imagination(s).

The basic ideas of Housing Imaginations as a subject
The intellectual roots of Housing Imaginations are three: (i) sociological imagination, (ii) human geography and (iii) housing studies. From these three intellectual roots, a number of basic conceptual ideas constitute the defining characteristics of Housing Imaginations:
I. From sociological imagination (Mills, 1999):
(a) The sociological imaginative leap to relate personal troubles to public issues/ and broader social historical conditions. This, in turn, is considered to useful for enabling us to "make great leaps toward changing the world for the better" (McDardell, 2012);
(b) Other sociological concepts that are often employed, including sociological perspectives, social class, gender, family, social relations, socialization, social conflict, social stratification, and social structure.
II. From human geography
(a) spatial thinking, comprising the notions of scale, space and connections between places; other constituent ideas are time-space, place and home.
(b) artifact, i.e., material aspects of a culture in cultural geography;
III. From housing studies, covering housing topics such as homelessness, housing exclusion, home, housing affordability, home ownership, public housing, gentrification, urbanization and urban renewal.
There are also hybrid concepts arising from cross-fertilization of ideas among sociological imagination, human geography and housing studies, notably geographical imaginations (Gregory, 1994) and housing imaginations (Ho, 2014). It is also clear that the three intellectual roots are themselves open academic platforms that are receptive to ideas from other subjects and disciplines based on diverse research and sociological paradigms. In addition, the subject endorses imaginative thinking, which favors "looking at the big picture, taking initiative, challenging assumptions and coming up with creative solutions to problems" (1dxtra.com, n.d.). All in all, the subject of Housing Imaginations obtains intellectual inspiration from several academic sources.

From the outset, the subject of Housing Imaginations identifies four specific study objectives (Leeds Metropolitan University, 2013):
Objective 1: "Critically evaluate competing perspectives on social housing and home";
Objective 2: "Understand and reflect on the sources of conflict arising from the different and often contested ways of representing housing neighborhoods";
Objective 3: "Interpret different ways in which attachment, emotion and belonging transform space to place":
Objective 4: "Critically assess how the multiple character of a place develops".

The writer has made some words bolded in these four objectives to indicate some additional study themes in Housing Imaginations. These are: (i) critical evaluation and reflection, (ii) conflict, (iii) competing perspectives, (iv) multiple character of a place, (v) attachment, emotion and belonging and (vi) housing neighborhoods. These study themes reveal the relevance of other topics in sociology, human geography and housing studies for the subject of Housing Imaginations. They are: various sociological perspectives, i.e., the functional perspective, the symbolic interactionist perspective and the conflict perspective (notably Feminism and Marxism), Humanistic geography and Critical geography. In particular, in the writer's teaching notes on Housing Imaginations, the works of David Harvey (Wikipedia - David Harvey) and Doreen Massey (Wikipedia -Doreen Massey) have often been referred to.
Via the teaching and research works on the subject from its inception, the writer has produced and posted study materials on the subject on a Facebook group (namely, Housing Imaginations) and a Facebook page (namely, Housing Imagination). The following Housing Imaginations lecture note produced by this writer on the topic of social exclusion (Exhibits 1 to 3) further illustrate how the basic Housing Imaginations ideas and study topics have been employed to examine the notion of social exclusion (and also housing exclusion).



[1] The edition of The Sociological Imaginations by C.W. Mills shown in the reference of this paper was published in 1999.


Exhibit 1: a mind map on social exclusion




Exhibit 2: using the notion of sociological imaginative leap and sociological perspectives to examine the topic of social exclusion (and housing exclusion)




Exhibit 3: Making use of multiple perspectives to critically evaluate social and housing exclusion





Referring to Exhibits 1 to 3, the lecture note on Housing Imaginations utilized the writer's other skills from his study on mind mapping and the Multi-perspective, Systems-based (MPSB) Research (re: The MPSB Research Facebook page). The next section moves on to the related subject of Housing Imagination.

Research status on Housing Imagination
The writer work on Housing Imagination (Ho, 2014a) did not just present an overall intellectual picture on Housing Imaginations as documented in Leeds Metropolitan University (2013), i.e., the Housing Imaginations module guide. It also postulated a version of Housing Imaginations that is theoretically grounded on critical systems thinking, called Housing Imagination. Since then, a number of intellectual endeavors have been made to conceptually and methodologically enrich the subject of Housing Imagination, as evidenced by the following published articles:

1.      Ho, J.K.K. 2014b. “A Research Note on Home Study in Housing Imagination using Soft Systems Methodology” European Academic Research 2(3) June: 3659-3675.
2.      Ho J.K.K. 2014. “An examination of the place notion for Housing Imagination study based on Systems Thinking” European Academic Research 2(6) September: 7537-7552.
3.      Ho, J.K.K. 2014c. “An Elaboration of a Systems-based Housing Imagination Evaluation Framework for Research and Pedagogical Practices” European Academic Research 2(4) July: 5099-5121.
4.      Ho, J.K.K. 2015. "A review of the notions of quality of life (QOL) and livability based on Ackovian Systems Thinking" American Research Thoughts 1(11) September: 2513-2532.
5.      Ho, J.K.K. 2016a. "An elaboration on the space-place-home (Sph) matrix for exploring housing-related problem-situations" European Academic Research 3(12) March: 13166-13185.
6.      Ho, J.K.K. 2016b. "An examination of the space-place-home (sph) matrix as a conceptual tool for studying housing policy" American Research Thoughts 2(5) March: 3737-3747.
7.      Ho, J.K.K. 2018. "The housing imaginations (hi's) statement analysis worksheet (HISAW): a research note" Joseph KK Ho e-resources blog April 17 (url address: http://josephho33.blogspot.hk/2018/04/the-housing-imaginations-his-statement_17.html).

These critical systems thinking based articles on Housing Imagination all endorse the aspiration of Housing Imaginations to be multi-perspectives. On top of that, these Housing Imagination articles explicitly employ contemporary systems thinking, notably critical systems thinking, which has not been considered in the Housing Imaginations literature. Studying the works of Housing Imagination and Housing Imaginations together as one whole subject, i.e., Housing Imagination(s) presents a stimulating and conceptually rich pathway to investigate housing studies topics. This academic venture constitutes one pathway to address the expressed concern as raised by Ronald (2002) in early 2000s regarding the "the lack of theoretical progression in housing studies".

Concluding remarks
The launching of the subject of Housing Imaginations is a novel intellectual venture in the housing studies field. In the same vein, the critical systems thinking-based Housing Imagination is an original academic endeavor in the fields of housing studies and critical systems thinking. The teaching and research knowledge accumulated over the last four years by this writer has now been presented in this article. It should be able to offer a useful and fresh account of the subject of Housing Imagination(s) to readers and students in the housing studies and systems thinking fields who are interested in it.



References
1dxtra.com. n.d. Insight: Imaginative Thinking, 1dxtra.com (url address: http://www.1dxtra.com/category/imaginative/) [visited at April 10, 2018].
Gregory, D. 1994. Geographical Imaginations, Wiley.
Housing Imagination, Facebook page maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/housing.imagination/).
Housing Imaginations, Facebook group maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1589262871142096/).
Leeds Metropolitan University. 2013. Housing Imaginations - module guide 2013/14: BA (Hons) Housing Studies,  School of Built Environment, Leeds Metropolitan University, U.K.
Ho, J.K.K. 2014a. "An Endeavor to Establish the Subject of Housing Imagination based on Critical Systems Thinking" European Academic Research 2(2) May: 2048-2066.
Ho, J.K.K. 2014b. “A Research Note on Home Study in Housing Imagination using Soft Systems Methodology” European Academic Research 2(3) June: 3659-3675.
Ho J.K.K. 2014c. “An examination of the place notion for Housing Imagination study based on Systems Thinking” European Academic Research 2(6) September: 7537-7552.
Ho, J.K.K. 2014c. “An Elaboration of a Systems-based Housing Imagination Evaluation Framework for Research and Pedagogical Practices” European Academic Research 2(4) July: 5099-5121.
Ho, J.K.K. 2015. "A review of the notions of quality of life (QOL) and livability based on Ackovian Systems Thinking" American Research Thoughts 1(11) September: 2513-2532.
Ho, J.K.K. 2016a. "An elaboration on the space-place-home (Sph) matrix for exploring housing-related problem-situations" European Academic Research 3(12) March: 13166-13185.
Ho, J.K.K. 2016b. "An examination of the space-place-home (sph) matrix as a conceptual tool for studying housing policy" American Research Thoughts 2(5) March: 3737-3747.
Ho, J.K.K. 2018. "The housing imaginations (hi's) statement analysis worksheet (HISAW): a research note" Joseph KK Ho e-resources blog April 17 (url address: http://josephho33.blogspot.hk/2018/04/the-housing-imaginations-his-statement_17.html).
McCardell, C. 2012. "The Sociological Imagination as a Solution" April 29, Bizgovsociii.wordpress.com (url address: https://bizgovsociii.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/the-sociological-imagination-as-a-solution/) [visited at April 10, 2018].
Mills, C.W. 1999. The Sociological Imagination, Oxford University Press.
Ronald, R. 2002. British Housing Studies Association Autumn Conference. Housing Imaginations: New concepts, new theories, new researchers. HSA Autumn Conference. Cardiff University September 4th and 5th 2001, Housing, Theory and Society 19(2): 112-113, DOI: 10.1080/140360902760385664.
The Multi-perspective, Systems-based Research, Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/multiperspective.systemsbased.research/).
Wikipedia (n.d.) "David Harvey" (url address: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Harvey).

Wikipedia (n.d.) "Doreen Massey (geographer)" (url address:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doreen_Massey_(geographer)).

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