ABSTRACT
The failure to develop an epistemology of housing lies at the root of the ambiguous position of housing research in the social sciences and the neglect of housing as a dimension of social structure. Central to this is the problematic and unclear substantive focus of housing research, deriving from tensions between the concepts of household and dwelling that in themselves are not resolvable. However, it should be possible to go beyond this by developing a higher level integrating concept that would provide a better basis for problem formulation and would lead analysis naturally towards a conception of housing more clearly related to social structure. This would result in a substantive focus that is more in tune with a theoretically explicated housing studies well anchored within the social sciences. The primary task in this chapter is to begin to address the question of what is the most effective conceptual basis and substantive focus of social science housing research.
