CALL FOR PAPERS 2017

 Housing Networks, Relations and Assemblages: The View From Housing Studies

DATE: 1st – 2nd June (with a half day PhD session on 31st May)

LOCATION: University of Sydney

ABSTRACTS DUE 31st March

KEYNOTE: Professor Pauline McGuirk

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In recent years growing numbers of urban researchers have been exploring methodologies that attend to networks, relations (Jacob and Malpas 2013) and assemblages (McFarlane 2011) that constitute urban space. This work has produced useful insights across diverse areas of study: the dynamic nature of policy development and transfer (Baker and McGuirk in press; McCann 2011), the processes of slum creation and inhabitation (McFarlane 2011), as well as the more-than-human relationships that underpin the functioning of cities (Jacobs and Cairns 2007). These efforts to think about cities in relational terms mobilise a range of different theoretical frameworks, including, but not limited to, assemblage theory, assemblage thinking and actor network theory. These ideas are also being taken up in housing studies, but there is little consensus amongst housing researchers about how these theories should shape the research process, and indeed if these theories can productively move us beyond current housing methodologies. The 2017 Housing Theory Symposium encourages papers that examine the value and utility of relational theories and methodologies in a housing studies context.

We encourage papers addressing this issue from different perspectives, including: papers that are strongly informed by relational theories, which explore ideas of agency and emergence in a housing context; papers that are critical of these theories; and papers that adapt relational methodologies as a tool to open up new avenues of enquiry.

Useful Readings

Acuto, M. and S. Curtis (2013). “Assemblage thinking and international relations. Reassembling International Theory”. M. Acuto and S. Curtis. New York, Palgrave MacMillan.

Allen, J. (2011). “Powerful assemblages?” Area 43(2): 154-157. Anderson, B., et al. (2012). “On assemblages and geography.” Dialogues in Human Geography 2(2): 171-189

Baker and McGuirk (in press) “Assemblage thinking as methodology: Community and practices or critical policy research”. Territory, Politics, Governance

Dittmer, J. (2013). “Geopolitical assemblages and complexity.” Progress in Human Geography.

Jacobs, K. and J. Malpas (2013). “Material objects, identity and the home: towards a relational housing research agenda.” Housing Theory and Society

Jacobs, J. M., S. Cairns, et al. (2007). “‘A Tall Storey … but, a Fact Just the Same’: The Red Road High-rise as a Black Box.” Urban Studies 44(3): 609-629

McFarlane, C. (2011). “The city as assemblage: dwelling and urban space.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 29(4): 649-671.

McCann, E. (2011). “Urban Policy Mobilities and Global Circuits of Knowledge: Toward a Research Agenda.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 101(1): 107-130.

McFarlane, C. (2011). “The city as assemblage: dwelling and urban space.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 29(4): 649-671.

ABSTRACTS DUE Please email your abstract to Emma Power by 31st March: e.power@westernsydney.edu.au

Organising Committee

• Dallas Rogers, Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney

• Emma Power, School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University

• Hazel Easthope, City Futures Research Centre, University of New South Wales

• Rae Dufty-Jones, School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University

Hosted by

• The Urban Housing Lab, Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney

• Henry Halloran Trust, University of Sydney