Training for tenants: ‘Citizens’ and the enterprise culture

Furbey, Robert; Wishart, Benita; Grayson, J.

doi:10.1080/02673039608720855

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Second, to what extent are providers able and willing to commit the resources necessary to support effective participation structures and processes (e.g. Audit Commission/Housing Corporation, 2004;DETR, 1999a;Furbey et al, 1996)? For example, there may be a lack of conviction that TP is cost effective.…”

Section: Approaches To Tenant Participationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tenant Participation and Social Housing in the UK: Applying a Theoretical Model

Simmons

Birchall

2007

Housing Studies

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Tenant participation is becoming an almost ubiquitous feature of the planning and provision of social housing. A range of opportunities has been (and is being) created by and for tenants to participate in the planning, provision and evaluation of housing services. Yet while local authorities and other social landlords may be keen to consult tenants, and tenants themselves often want to make their voices heard, there is a perennial problem in actually getting people involved. This paper provides a comprehensive framework for understanding this important question. It then reports on recent research that applies the framework in two different contexts: tenants' associations and tenant management organisations. The implications for housing policy and practice are discussed.

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Section: Approaches To Tenant Participationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tenant Participation and Social Housing in the UK: Applying a Theoretical Model

Simmons

Birchall

2007

Housing Studies

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“…It has also led to the provision of special courses for tenants and tenant participation officers such as the Chartered Institute of Housing's Certificate in Tenant Participation. The government's own attitude to such tenant training, however, has been criticised as paternalistic and personalistic (Furbey et al, 1996), and this criticism raises an important issue about the nature of the knowledge and skills which tenants need in order to secure more effective control of their homes and their estates, rather than becoming simply more responsible and more respectable tenants. At this stage, one can perhaps only make a few tentative suggestions.…”

Section: Empowerment Through Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

Empowerment through Residence

Somerville¹

1998

Housing Studies

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What does it mean to empower people through the housing in which they live, and how is this empowerment to be achieved? These are the questions which are examined in this paper. Typologies of empowerment processes are devised in an attempt to make sense of the conceptual and empirical variety involved. The distinction between 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' empowerment The Meaning of EmpowermentThe concept of power has been strongly contested since Lukes (1974). As an abstract general concept, it has suffered from a high degree of vagueness and ambiguity, which has severely limited its theoretical utility (Barnes, 1988;Clegg, 1989). As a practical concept, however, it remains extremely popular, because of its emotive content, and consequently plays a major role in political debate and policy making. The concept of empowerment is generally intended in the more practical sense, as involving a process by which people who are disadvantaged or excluded acquire something of the character of citizens (Harrison, 1995, p. 22). At the same time, however, the concept of empowerment retains a necessary element of vagueness, associated with the abstract general meaning of power, from which it is derived. It is possible, therefore, that the concept of empowerment is not amenable to a precise general definition. Provisionally, however, it is suggested that empowerment could be described as any process by which people's control over their lives is increased. The exact meaning of increasing control can then be spelled out only in specific contexts such as employment, housing or education, although the general theme in each of these contexts will be one of increasing choice and freedom of action for the people affected. Empowerment in a Housing ContextThis paper is concerned speci® cally with housing-related 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. The paper is concerned mainly with collective control over housing consumption and management, but this should not be taken to imply any collectivist, consumptionist or managerial bias in the treatment of housing empowerment. It should also be noted from the outset that it may not be possible to draw any precise distinction between a process which gives people more control over their housing and one which gives them more control over their residential environment (encompassing roads, schools, shops, parks, leisure centres, and so on, and including the regulation of behaviour within that environment). The paper starts by distinguishing empowerment from participation, and makes a number of comments relating to the recent literature on tenant participation in particular. It is argued that there is a need for a more rigorous examination of empowerment processes, and in the following section an attempt is made to devise a typology of such processes which is completely different from any typology of...

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Urban ‘regeneration’: reflections on a metaphor

Furbey

1999

Critical Social Policy

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Recent British urban policy has pursued ‘regeneration’. This article offers a critical reflection on this pervasive metaphor. ‘Regeneration’ is a signifier of profound change in many religious traditions and political ideologies, both radical and conservative. In practice, however, the more conservative meanings, deriving from individualistic spiritualities and ‘psychologisms’, sociological organicism and statist interventionism, remain dominant. Hence, for all its ‘holistic’ and ‘inclusive’ novelty, contemporary urban regeneration preserves some familiar limitations of perspective. In particular, in its quest for ‘social inclusion’, often the ‘excluders’ are not in view and the ‘excluded’ are not in focus.

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Training for tenants: ‘Citizens’ and the enterprise culture

Cited by 4 publications

References 8 publications

Tenant Participation and Social Housing in the UK: Applying a Theoretical Model

Tenant Participation and Social Housing in the UK: Applying a Theoretical Model

Empowerment through Residence

Urban ‘regeneration’: reflections on a metaphor

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