Challenging the Norm? The Ethopolitics of Low Cost

Homeownership in Scotland

Kim McKeeSeminar Paper, 2011

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Exploratory qualitative study, US Seedcorn

Interviews with LCHO (shared equity/ownership) purchasers in the west of Scotland

Connect literature on the normalisation of h/ship to Foucauldian-inspired literature on ethopolitics

Focus on lay perspectives & how governable subjects can resist dominant policy norms

Introduction

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1. Theoretical imperatives for the study

2. Aims and methods of the study

3. Low Cost Homeownership Policy in Scotland

4. Empirical Findings

5. Conclusion

Outline

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Governing as ‘conduct of ‘conduct’(Foucault 2003)

Power as productive; active agents governed through capacity to act

Rejects negative view of power derived from Hobbes (A exerting will over B)

Reconciling aims of ‘governable subjects’ with that of ‘the governors’

Governing Conduct

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Power’s effects can never be guaranteed; subjects recalcitrant

Foucault (2003) rejects the power/domination binary that has dominated the social sciences

Need to go beyond textual analysis to really understand contested nature governing practices

Combine DA with face-to-face qual methods

Power & Resistance

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Rose’s (2000) ‘ethopolitics’:◦ Constructed as ethical citizens able to self-regulate

their own conduct

◦ Understood in terms of responsible conduct & acts of consumption (including housing)

Distinction between ‘good’ & ‘bad’ citizens: Bauman (1998) flawed consumption

Active agency versus passive dependency

Ethopolitics

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Well documented h/ship is ‘normalised’ as the ‘tenure of choice’ for the majority

Acts as a social signifier:

“means through which the cultural competence and social position of the occupant can be expressed” (Allen 2007: 74)

H/ship promoted by gvt; whilst at the same time social housing marginalised (i.e. Cuts, LCHO)

Housing Consumption & Tenure

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Negative image linked to residualisation of social housing

In addition to structural inequalities, these areas suffer from negative perceptions & reputations

Focus on problem people, in problem places not new; long history in Urban Studies

Strong geographical & class dimension; focus on tenants within social housing estates

Social Housing: ‘dreadful enclosure?’

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“.... One must resist the tendency to treat the ghetto as an alien space, to see in it only

what deviates from the common norm .... A rudimentary sociology of sociology would

show that most descriptions of the ‘underclass’ reveal more about the relation of the analyst to the motley population it

designates, about his or her racial and class preconceptions, fears and fantasies, than

they do about their punitive object” (Wacquant 2008: 49-50).

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Using ethopolitics, explore localised resistance to the ‘normalisation’ of h/ship

Focus on Low Cost Homeownership (LCHO) key; not one experience of h/ship but multiple

Intermediate housing market useful lens in which to explore my theoretical interests

Targets households in the SRS, who have direct experience of other tenures

Aim of the Study

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Home o/ship largest tenure in Scotland (65%), but lower than elsewhere in UK (70%)

RTB important, but more recently alternative LCHO schemes developed (i.e. SE/SO)

Used to further extend h/ship via targeted public subsidy; is this sustainable?

Important in delivering regeneration outcomes

The Policy Context in Scotland

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Focus on marginal homeowners purchased through LCHO initiatives

July-Sep 2009 14 semi-structured interviews, SE and SO purchasers in west of Scotland

Focus on LA areas Glasgow and West Dunbartonshire; large SRS & LCHO

Three housing developments (Glasgow Greater Govan, Glasgow North East & Clydebank)

Methodology

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The empirical data

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Interviewees contested dominant policy narrative re: ‘tenure of choice’

Recognised the benefits asset ownership offered

But decision to buy was primarily driven by desire to exit rental sector due to ‘decline’

Home o/ship a means to an end, not an end in itself

Homeownership: tenure of choice?

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“It was a lovely flat I was in and the neighbours were really nice ... But the housing association weren’t dealing with the anti-social behaviour ... I think it’s got worse, I think they often don’t vet people”

(Angela, 36-45 year-old-age group, shared equity purchaser, Clydebank, previously in social housing)

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Crucially, not social housing as a tenure per se that was problematised

Rather the changing social mix (residualisation)

Other day-to-day practical frustrations:◦ Repairs◦ Choice◦ Allocations

Individuals direct experience of the rental sector (and desire to exit it) that matters

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“One of the reasons why we bought our first council house was because they weren't

doing any repairs for you. I mean we practically rebuilt that house”. (Bernadette, 66-75 years old, shared owner,Glasgow Greater Govan, previously in social housing)

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“You don’t really get much choice where you stay, you know …. Unless I could stay with someone for a long, long time, I’m going to get the roughest area. I’ve worked too hard to take my daughter to live somewhere like that”.

(Ina, 46-55 years old, shared equity purchaser, Clydebank, previously a homeowner)

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Consumption as social signifier?

Majority disinterested in ‘climbing the housing ladder’; ‘satisfied’ and ‘settled’ in their home

No desire to sell their property in order to move onto a ‘bigger and better one’

Disdain for the hassle such a ‘property-ladder’ strategy necessitated

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“I don’t buy into [climbing the housing ladder] because as it is painfully obvious these days too many people spend their lives watching property development programmes. I’ve just got no idea where that mind frame comes from, so I’m definitely not in that frame of mind ... the kind of buying and selling and moving around and about. It’s too much hassle. Come on, we’re busy enough and have enough grief in our life without adding to it with these majorly stressful events”.

(Harry, 46-55 years old, shared owner, Glasgow Greater Govan, previously in private renting)

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Norms equally & organically driven from within working class communities

More research needed into our assumed knowledge re: ethics, values, class & tenure

As Allen (2007) argues, lack of research that endeavours to understand w/c housing in its own terms

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Interviewees’ views were nonetheless complex & contradictory

Conceded owning your home was regarded by wider society as a ‘symbol of success’

H/ship for some was associated with hard work & achievement

Housing consumption does transmit a message about individual tastes & cultural practices

A Symbol of Success?

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INTERVIEWER: I guess some people would say that owning your own house is a symbol of success; is that something you agree with?

NATALIE: I would agree with that. I think it gives you a sense of achievement. You’ve worked towards something, you’ve made sacrifices to save up your deposit. You put a lot of money and effort into getting the house. Getting all the furnishing for it is even an achievement because it costs a lot to get everything for it, do it the way you like it.  (Natalie, 18-25 years old, shared equity purchaser, Glasgow North East, new household)

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Underlines taken-for-granted nature of the homeownership discourse

Reinforced by the media and the state (i.e. State policies, ‘property-porn’ TV shows)

However, interviewees rejected idea that social renters are flawed consumers

Staying in ‘a nice home, in a nice area’ that mattered; not tenure

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“To me it’s not that important. If I was staying in a wee council house somewhere and it was a nice wee house, it wouldn’t bother me that I didn’t own it to be honest … I mean I’m no one of these people that’s jealous of somebody who stays in a bigger house form me to be honest. At the end of the day as long as I get by.”  

(Eleanor, 46-55 years old, shared owner, Glasgow Greater Govan, previously in social housing)

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Rejection of the stereotype commonly attributed to social housing, which ‘others’ social renters

Highlights importance of considering resistance to policy & political discourses

As John Clarke (2005: 460) has argued:

“It is easy to read strategies, grand designs or interests as being realized in practice, but the regularity with which new strategies have to be invented suggests that reality is often recalcitrant”

Rejecting Negative Discourses

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LCHO specifically targets people in the SRS; personal experience of social housing key

This study reported much less tenure prejudice than in previous work

Gurney (1999) describes perceptions of social renters as ‘abnormal’ & lacking in pride

Interviewees placed a strong positive emphasis on the sector’s ‘social’ role

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“I lived there [in my social rented flat] for fourteen years. I knew the area, the people were really nice, and the neighbours would sit out the back with a bottle of wine and sit and have a chat. We used to have a good laugh ... there is a positive thing about social housing in that it’s giving people, affordable housing. People who canae afford to buy their own house”.

(Angela, 36-45 years old, shared equity purchaser,Clydebank, previously in social housing)

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Talked positively about their memories of the sector

Direct challenge to popular image of social housing as a ‘tenure of last resort’

Governable subjects may be unwilling to embrace governmental prescriptions

Socialisation in shaping tenure prejudices

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“I think when you’re young you don’t understand the concept of it being a council house or a private house ... Certainly the [council] house I grew up in, it was a really nice street, was very quiet ... it was a quite sought after area”. (Natalie, 18-25 years old, shared equity purchaser, Glasgow North East, new household)

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Scottish context perhaps significant; higher level of social housing historically

Rejection of wider stigmatised discourses by low-income groups elsewhere:

◦ Mee (2007) Australian public housing

◦ De Decker and Pannecoucke (2004) Belgium

Wacquant (2007): negative image reflects external moral judgements

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Foucauldian framework highlights diffuse nature of power in society & way in which governable subjects themselves inculcated in projects of rule

Ethopolitics draws our attention to the role of culture, taste & lifestyle choices in contemporary technologies of governance

In housing policy, clear that homeownership is now the tenure of the majority & a normalised act of consumption

Conclusion

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Little attempt to explore the relevance of these dominant norms for low-income groups

Significant omission, because subjects not passive & on the receiving end of power

By contrast, they can, and indeed do, challenge, contest, reinterpret & subvert dominant norms of acceptable & expected behaviour

As Foucault (2003) argues the exercise of power is not possible without some possibility of escape

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This paper will be soon be available in theJournal of Urban Studies through Online

Early

QUESTIONS?