Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity

All these premises having, as I think, been clearly made out, it is impossible that the rulers now on earth should make any benefit, or derive any the least shadow of authority from that, which is held to be the fountain of all power, Adam's private dominion and paternal jurisdiction; so that he that will not give just occasion to think that all government in the world is the product only of force and violence, and that men live together by no other rules but that of beasts, where the strongest carries it, and so lay a foundation for perpetual disorder and mischief, tumult, sedition and rebellion, (things that the followers of that hypothesis so loudly cry out against) must of necessity find out another rise of government, another original of political power, and another way of designing and knowing the persons that have it, than what Sir Robert Filmer hath taught us.

Two Treatises of Government.

By Pierre Bourdieu (London: Routledge, 2010), xxx + 607 pp. £15.99 paper. A combination of social theory, statistical data, illustrations, and interviews, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judg...

Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste

During the past two decades we have witnessed a rather impressive growth of theoretical innovations and conceptual revisions of epistemological and methodological approaches within constructivist‐qualitative quarters of the social sciences. Methodological discussions have commonly addressed a variety of methods for collecting and analyzing empirical material, yet the critical grounds upon which these were reformulated have rarely been extended to embrace sampling concepts and procedures. The latter have been overlooked, qualifying only as a ‘technical’ research stage. This article attends to snowball sampling via constructivist and feminist hermeneutics, suggesting that when viewed critically, this popular sampling method can generate a unique type of social knowledge—knowledge which is emergent, political and interactional. The article reflects upon researches about backpacker tourists and marginalized men, where snowball sampling was successfully employed in investigating these groups' organic social ne...

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Sampling Knowledge: The Hermeneutics of Snowball Sampling in Qualitative Research

Rowland Atkinson and John Flint are researchers at the Department of Urban Studies, University of Glasgow. Both have an interest in the spatial distribution and experience of social exclusion and have been commissioned to devise a methodology for tracing residents who leave regeneration areas in Scotland. •In its simplest formulation snowball sampling consists of identifying respondents who are then used to refer researchers on to other respondents. •Snowball sampling contradicts many of the assumptions underpinning conventional notions of sampling but has a number of advantages for sampling University of Surrey Sociology at Surrey

Accessing Hidden and Hard-to-reach Populations: Snowball Research Strategies

Anecdotal evidence suggests that ‘gated communities’ are growing in popularity. This paper uses empirical evidence to profile the location and characteristics of gated development in England and details the relative integration of residents. The paper also attempts to think through the wider theoretical and urban policy impacts of gating. In contrast to the view that gated communities provide an extreme example of residential segregation we go further and argue that the time‐space trajectories of residents suggest a dynamic pattern of separation that goes beyond the place of residence. Gated communities appear to provide an extreme example of more common attempts by other social groups to insulate against perceived risk and unwanted encounters. Patterns of what we term time‐space trajectories of segregation can thereby be seen as closed linkages between key fields, such as work and home, which enable social distance to be maintained and perceived risks to be managed by elite social groups. We conclude tha...

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Fortress UK? Gated communities, the spatial revolt of the elites and time–space trajectories of segregation

Recent developments in social housing policy, including large-scale stock transfers, have been proclaimed as marking 'the death of council housing' in the UK. The decline of public housing and new techniques for the governance of social housing provision are symbolic of the transformation of welfarist social regimes in advanced liberal democracies. This paper explores recent social housing policy in the UK and suggests that policy developments reflect changes in technologies for governing the conduct of social housing tenants and practitioners. The ethopolitics (Rose 2001) of social housing are characterized by emerging identities of active, entrepreneurial consumption and the invocation of responsibilized community. The paper examines how ethopower is manifested through technologies of social housing governance and identifies conflicts inherent within this new politics of conduct.

Housing and ethopolitics: constructing identities of active consumption and responsible community

Communities, places and institutional relations: assessing the role of area-based community representation in local governance

Writers influenced by Foucault's work on governmentality have characterised emerging forms of governance in advanced liberal democracies as being based upon ‘technologies of the self’ in which power works through the self‐regulation of subjects within constructed norms of responsible and ethical conduct. This ‘politics of behaviour’ has been particularly prominent in UK housing policy debates in relation to anti‐social behaviour, benefit reform and tenant participation. This paper argues that recent reforms are premised upon the identification of the responsible (and responsive) tenant as a central organising mechanism in new processes of housing governance. Although tenant responsibility is not a new concept, the paper argues that the nature and scope of this responsibility is currently being broadened and deepened, and discusses how this reconfiguration of responsibility reflects a wider realignment of governing identities within housing policy and practice.

John Flint

Papers

Accessing Hidden and Hard-to-reach Populations: Snowball Research Strategies

Fortress UK? Gated communities, the spatial revolt of the elites and time–space trajectories of segregation

Housing and ethopolitics: constructing identities of active consumption and responsible community

Communities, places and institutional relations: assessing the role of area-based community representation in local governance

The responsible tenant: housing governance and the politics of behaviour