Making oneself at home: the mediation of residential action

Abstract

This paper builds on previous work on resident participation and the mediation of housing policy at the residential level. The paper reviews different types of residential mediation arrangement, that is, types of arrangement whereby residents become more at home in their living environments, associated with an increase in social control over those environments. After examining evidence from a number of countries, in particular the UK and Sweden, the authors conclude that five types can be distinguished: marketized arrangements, personalized arrangements, partnerships, and forms of representative and cooperative resident management. These arrangements differ from one another with regard to their empowerment effects, the bias in the vertical direction of power flow within them, their effects on residents' independence, the range over which their effects are mediated, the inclusionary or exclusionary bias of their organizational structures, and the homogeneity or heterogeneity of their social contexts. The authors attempt to make sense of this complexity of variation by viewing the arrangements against the background of formal and informal social relations in the local areas where the arrangements are formed. It is argued that the literature on community and area regeneration can be used to throw some light on the causal mechanisms involved. Finally, the authors suggest that the whole constitution of community and of residential mediation arrangements can be understood in terms of the development of phenomenological forms of privacy, identity and familiarit

Klantgestuurd voorraadbeleid en empowerment

“…De parallel naar de 'participation explosion' van Hirschman (1978;9, zie 2.1.6) is duidelijk: in termen van Somerville leidt "bottom up radical empowerment" tot het veranderen van bestaande structuren waarbij de positie van de burger versterkt is. Specifiek in het woondomein meent Somerville (Somerville and Steele 1999) het volgende "housingrelated empowerment, and this can be defined as any process by which people gain increased control over their housing situation. Such control can be individual or collective, over production or consumption, over investment or management" (ibidem:234).…”

Open Space Management in Residential Areas ‐ How It Is Organised and Why

“…One clear pattern, however, was that formal resident involvement processes existed exclusively in areas managed by municipal housing companies. Possible reasons for this are: (a) that the municipal companies in general are large, and that size is important for the ability to initiate and support different kind of local processes; (b) that there is a long tradition of collaboration between the municipal housing companies and the Union of Tenants, a collaboration that has resulted in central and local agreements Compared with to the typology of landlord-tenant agreements suggested by Somerville and Steele (1999), the self-management processes identifi ed exemplify cooperative tenant management, while the processes of supervised self-management and garden groups are more of partnerships.…”

Une nouvelle légitimité pour l’État social : par-delà le bien-être, le plaisir d’agir

“…Comme le soulignent certains auteurs, l'amélioration de la qualité de vie par le biais du logement passe forcément aussi par l'éducation (information, sensibilisation, etc.) et par l'amélioration des conditions de vie socioéconomiques des destinataires de l'intervention (Somerville, 1998;Somerville et Steele, 1999).…”