Issues of ‘difference’ are on the agenda right across the social sciences, and are encountered daily by practitioners in policy fields. A central question is how the welfare state and its institutions respond to impairment, ethnicity, and gender. This book provides an invaluable overview of key issues set in the context of housing. Touching on concerns ranging from minority ethnic housing needs to the housing implications of domestic violence, it shows how difference is regulated in housing. The book deploys a distinctive theoretical perspective that is applicable to other aspects of the welfa ... More

Issues of ‘difference’ are on the agenda right across the social sciences, and are encountered daily by practitioners in policy fields. A central question is how the welfare state and its institutions respond to impairment, ethnicity, and gender. This book provides an invaluable overview of key issues set in the context of housing. Touching on concerns ranging from minority ethnic housing needs to the housing implications of domestic violence, it shows how difference is regulated in housing. The book deploys a distinctive theoretical perspective that is applicable to other aspects of the welfare state, and bridges the agency/structure divide. It brings disability, ethnicity, and gender into the centre of an analysis of housing policies and practices; offers a new approach to housing, informed by recent theoretical debates about agency, structure, and diversity; develops the ideas of ‘difference within difference’ and ‘social regulation’; and looks beyond the concerns of postmodernism to create an original account of difference and structure within the welfare state.