A review of an article on Housing’s values, notably on research approaches: for Housing Studies students

A review of an article on Housing’s values, notably on research approaches: for Housing Studies students

 

 How to describe the article in Harvard reference format?

Rogers, D. & McAuliffe, C., 2023. Housing’s values: Housing as an ethical urbanism. Environment and Planning F: Philosophy, Theory, Models, Methods and Practice, 4(3), pp.357–373. DOI: 10.1177/26349825231178799

 

Highlight the main research issues and research objectives, 2 main academic theories used and the main research methods used in this article.

Main Research Issues:

• The article addresses the complex ways housing is valued beyond simplistic definitions of economic value, exploring multiple, intersecting value regimes including economic, social, Indigenous, care ethics, and human rights perspectives.
• It critiques the dominant reduction of housing value to economic or real estate market terms and highlights the political struggles and tensions among competing valuations of housing.
• The study investigates how housing values are produced, contested, and realized through political and social processes, focusing on plural, incommensurable values that inform ethical urbanism.

Research Objectives:

• To engage with the various ways housing is valued as situated and relational, rather than attempting to find a single or reductive ‘value’ of housing.
• To conceptualize an agonistic politics of housing value that recognizes and accounts for plural, competing, and intersecting value regimes.
• To illustrate these conceptual points through Australian case studies involving capitalist real estate values, Indigenous cultural values tied to land and housing, and care ethics and human rights discourses.
• To foster an understanding of housing as a site of political contestation among diverse value claims, and to promote respectful engagement and agonistic pluralism in the politics of housing values.

Two Main Academic Theories Used:

1.    Value Pluralism and Moral Philosophy of Value: The authors draw on theories that recognize plurality and incommensurability of values, resisting the reduction of social or moral values to economic terms. They engage with moral philosophy and anthropology to understand values as sedimented, contextual, and embedded in social relations.

2.    Agonistic Pluralism (Agonistic Democracy): Influenced by Chantal Mouffe and related thinkers, this political theory frames value contestation as an agonistic politics rather than antagonistic conflict or consensualism. It underpins their conceptualization of plural values in contestation forming a productive politics of housing values.

Main Research Methods:

• The article takes a conceptual and theoretical approach rather than empirical data collection, drawing on interdisciplinary literature from anthropology, moral philosophy, political theory, and urban studies.
• It uses case studies from Australia as illustrative examples of interacting regimes of value (capitalist real estate, Indigenous land values, care ethics and human rights) to ground the theoretical analysis.
• The approach is analytical and discursive, focusing on literature synthesis and theoretical development to elucidate housing’s plural values and agonistic politics

 

What research approaches (reasoning) [inductive/ deductive/ abductive] and research approaches (methods) [qualitative/ quantitative/ mixed methods research] have been used in this study?

Research Approaches (Reasoning):

• The study mainly employs deductive reasoning, as it starts from established theoretical frameworks in value theory, moral philosophy, anthropology, and political theory (e.g., agonistic pluralism). It applies these theories to the topic of housing values to develop a conceptual framework for understanding plural and incommensurable housing value regimes and their political contestation. The authors deduce implications of these theories for housing and illustrate these through Australian case examples.

Research Approaches (Methods):

• The study uses a qualitative research approach. It is primarily conceptual and theoretical, synthesizing interdisciplinary literature and applying existing academic theories to housing values. The empirical material takes the form of illustrative case studies rather than systematic data collection or quantitative analysis. The method involves critical interpretive analysis of value regimes, political theory, and housing discourse rather than measurement or statistical methods.

In summary, the article is a deductive, qualitative research study focusing on theory development and conceptual analysis concerning plural housing values and agonistic politics.

 

Describe 2 main research limitations of the study.

Two main research limitations of the study are:

1.    Limited empirical scope and generalizability: The study primarily presents a conceptual and theoretical analysis of housing values, drawing on selective illustrative cases from Australia rather than comprehensive empirical data across diverse contexts. This limits the ability to generalize findings broadly or to empirically validate the proposed agonistic politics of housing value in different geographical or cultural settings.

2.    Partial engagement with the full range of housing value regimes: While the study discusses three key regimes of housing value—capitalist real estate value, Indigenous cultural values, and care/human rights ethics—it acknowledges the existence of many other intersecting and overlapping regimes (e.g., financial, digital, environmental). The article does not fully engage with these other regimes or their complex interactions, leaving gaps in the conceptual and empirical understanding of housing value pluralism.

These limitations suggest the need for further empirical research to explore diverse contexts and additional regimes of housing values.