Conceptualising housing as infrastructure

A Framework for Thinking Infrastructurally in Housing Studies

Bibliographic Data

ID6427588
AuthorsTegan L Bergan (0000-0002-4634-623X, Western Sydney University), Emma R Power (0000-0001-5204-322X, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume40
Issue3
Pages673-695
Publication date2024-02-13
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHousing Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0267-3037 • E-ISSN: 1466-1810
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02673037.2024.2309993
OpenAlexW4391821006
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited46

Drawing on new infrastructural scholarship, this paper conceptualises housing as infrastructure, outlining a way forward for housing researchers to draw the concept into their empirical practises. We demonstrate how and why we should research housing as infrastructure, using co-living housing as our empirical touchpoint to develop a framework for infrastructural housing studies. This paper has two parts. First, we identify what it means to conceptualise housing as infrastructure. Infrastructure is: a socio-material system or pattern, relational and generative. Second, we outline some useful vantage points for thinking infrastructurally about housing. We consider affordances, politics and inhabitation as three useful locations to understand the infrastructural work that housing does to order and organise the social world. We suggest thinking infrastructurally about housing can be done by interrogating how the dimensions of infrastructure work to order and organise affordances, politics and inhabitation

Architectural engineering · Business · Environmental planning · Geography · Sociology · Engineering · Urban and Rural Development Challenges · Urban Planning and Governance · Water Governance and Infrastructure