ABSTRACT
The functional specialty Interpretation proposes a shift in the way housing is defined from descriptive definitions reached within an everyday common-sense framework to answering a theoretical question. Housing is used for differing purposes by different groups. Jim Kemeny sought to further the theoretical development of housing research and outlined two requirements: first, the need consciously to re-integrate housing into broader issues of social structure, and second, to develop a greater sense of ref exivity, by examining more closely the epistemological grounds of what people are doing. Kemeny argues that each discipline in the social sciences dimensions out or abstracts different aspects of social relationships. Within a theory of social housing rent, each purpose forms a context and the ordered set of theories is a series of related contexts. The following outlines a theory of social housing rent within five contexts: social housing rent, finance, social housing, standard of living and economy.
