Papers
Darcy, M. & Gwyther, G (2009) ‘There goes the neighbourhood . . .’: recasting ‘neighbourhood effects’ and ‘disadvantaged places’ using collaborative ‘emergence’ methodology
ISA Research Committee 43 Conference Glasgow, Sept 2009
This paper reports on the early stages of a cross-national project foregrounding tenants' constructions of the links between disadvantage and residential neighbourhood, and thus challenges conventional notions of place-based disadvantage. The research takes an open ended approach to knowledge and deploys a participatory action research approach that minimises pre-definition of problems and research questions, and generates opportunities for participants to develop their own accounts of the role of place/neighbourhood, in their lives.
The concept of ‘neighbourhood effects’ remains controversial in housing and urban studies, despite being widely used to justify public housing redevelopment. Critics have questioned the measurability of such effects, and even the utility of the theory (Lupton 2003), while even those who claim to demonstrate a link between location and disadvantage admit that possible ‘causal mechanisms’ are poorly understood. Galster (2009) highlights the importance of ‘external’ factors, such as under-investment and stigma, in reproducing disadvantage, and since most identified disadvantaged neighbourhoods, in advanced capitalist countries, are dominated by public housing, to this can be added the eligibility, allocation and management practices of housing authorities.
The 'exclusion' of public tenants can be seen to extend to their exclusion from the discursive practices through which disadvantaged places have become problematised, and in which policy solutions are framed. These practices notably include academic research, where the definition and identification of disadvantaged places, and the local processes at work, is primarily the province of experts. Conventional positivist epistemology, which dominates both research and policy-making, systematically excludes important aspects of community life as experienced by those most affected (Darcy 2007).
The study reported here has been developed in collaboration with grass-roots tenant leaders and representative organisations. It uses a range of visual and interactive techniques, including participatory diagramming and video-conferencing, to collaboratively construct, interpret and theorise residents’ accounts of place and disadvantage. Although locally initiated, these accounts and analysis are developed collaboratively across sites. This is to allow and encourage participants to consider the different ways in which place factors might impinge in different contexts and to think deductively about the meaning of these differences rather than reacting to specific local conditions or interventions. This cross-national, collaborative approach also encourages communication and networking between participants which may lead to innovative approaches or action plans addressing the problems and issues they identify.
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Darcy, M (2009) De-concentration of Disadvantage and Mixed Income Housing: a Critical Discourse Approach
Housing, Theory and Society, IFirst Advance access (1), 1-22
Despite differences in the history, form, and tenant populations, housing authorities in the UK, USA and Australia have embarked on similar redevelopment projects designed to address social exclusion by replacing areas of concentrated public housing with “mixed-income” developments. Drawing on examples from Australia, this paper analyses the discourse which supports these redevelopment projects. Elements of the discursive strategy revealed include: the construction of public tenancy as a disadvantage in itself; the creation of particular research categories and objects (such as “estates”) based on selective use of statistics and scale; the generation of binary narratives concerning community life; and constrained forms of consultation and participation. The analysis demonstrates that while purporting to be an anti-poverty measure, policy directed at de-concentration of public housing and “mixed income” development forms part of a neo-liberal agenda of housing reform and fails to address the demonstrated connections between housing and social disadvantage.
Garland, D and Darcy, M. (2009) 'Working Together?': The Salvation Army and the Job Network
Organization, 16(5), 755-774.
This article explores the changing relationship between government and The Salvation Army, as manifested in the development and implementation of employment policy in Australia between 1998 and 2007. This exploration focuses on the introduction of market discourse throughout the contracting process, in particular how this discourse seeks to reconstruct service users as 'consumers', and the Salvation Army's response to this. By studying the ways in which this religiously and socially motivated non-profit organization sought to mediate neo-liberal discourses of competition and consumerism, we seek to shed light on the processes and pressures affecting faith-based and other non-profit organizations that increasingly find themselves acting as agents of government policy under the principles of New Public Management (NPM).
A Question of Balance: principles, contracts and the government-not-for-profit relationship
Report of a Project conducted by The Whitlam Institute, together with its project partners the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the UWS Social Justice & Social Change Research Centre
The project examined the contractual relationship between governments and non-for-profit organisations for the provision of services, particularly employment services. In doing so, we have supplemented the primary and secondary research with detailed legal analysis of a number of key Federal government contracts.
While quite technical at one level, the report is attracting considerable interest as it addresses a critical issue at the heart of the way governments deliver services. Verona Burgess at the Australian Financial Review suggests to her readers that’s it’s well worth a read in her comprehensive piece on the report (4.09.09)
‘A Question of Balance’ not only presents the research findings but proposes a series of recommendations including a proposed set of common principles that could govern future contracts.
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Darcy, M (2007) Place and Disadvantage: The Need for Reflexive Epistemology in Spatial Social Science
Urban Policy & Research; Sep 2007, Vol. 25 Issue 3, p347-361
The relationship between place and disadvantage, and particularly the question of whether, and how, geographical concentration of disadvantaged households exacerbates disadvantage is of growing concern to social science and urban policy. Despite many calls for a subtle and complex approach to constructing knowledge about these issues, a positivist approach based on statistical indicators, appears to dominate policy making. This approach reifies place and distracts attention from strategies which might effectively address disadvantage at the local level. This article describes two examples of small area redevelopment where such an approach has been used to suggest that redevelopment and dispersal of public housing concentrations are in the interests of current residents, whose lives would be improved through replacement of existing housing forms with more diverse, or at least tenure-mixed, suburbs. Yet the process by which this improvement will occur is yet to be explicated or even adequately theorised by spatial social science. The indicators used to measure the 'success' of redevelopment, such as small area employment, education and crime statistics, are likely to reveal little about the impact of such projects on the lives of the individuals most affected. A more reflexive and 'deeply engaged' research methodology is called for.
Tregeagle, S., & Darcy, M. (Dec 2008). Child welfare and information and communication technology: today's challenge
British Journal of Social Work, 38, 8. p.1481-1498.
Information and communication technology (ICT) usage in contemporary child welfare practice reflects dominant managerial interests rather than those of the profession, and,
importantly, of service users. Explicit use of ICT in the interests of service users remains embryonic, and professionals have been slow to capitalize on the communication potential of new technologies. This contrasts with technology uptake in other areas of human services. Unless this situation changes, client participation and power may decline further and managerial interests increasingly dominate. ICT has the potential to strengthen interaction between families and workers and change the conditions of initiation, distribution and use of spoken and written ‘texts’ in social work practice. This could significantly affect the ability of service users to be heard and to influence decision making.
However, the opportunities and limitations of computer-mediated communication are a relatively new area of study—their application to child welfare requires considerable
care. Social workers should explore the advantages that ICT offers service users and challenge the digital divide which still affects significant pockets of service users, and reflect
on our own role in this. Here, we ask why social work has been has been slow to capitalize on new approaches to its core business: communication.
Darcy (2008) Housing Sydney
Sydney Journal, Vol 1, No 1
Housing processes and products provide an invaluable contribution to understanding the city. The form, location and condition of its dwellings are a key feature of Sydney, reflecting its historical development, household and social structure, economic conditions and response to climate.
Four aspects of Sydney’s housing - type, tenure, cost and location - provide indispensable insights into the city’s social makeup, its economic foundations and cultural identity. Unfortunately, as in most large cities around the world, a proportion of Sydney’s residents are unable to secure housing of any kind.
Darcy, M. (1999). The discourse of 'community' and the reinvention of social housing policy in Australia.
Urban Studies, 36(1), 13-26.
Recent developments in Australian social housing policy encompass a larger role for non-government housing providers. The new emphasis is mediated and supported by the discourse of 'community' housing. 'Community' is invoked as an ideal by liberal critics of the centralised state, and conversely, by critics of liberalism who pose it as an alternative to individualism and the abstract formalism of the liberal state. Much of the rhetoric of community housing in Australia has emphasised its claimed potential to demonstrate ways in which social housing management can be made more accountable and responsive, as well as more equitable and efficient, but the evident contradictions in the discourse raise questions concerning the reasons for, and likely outcomes of, state sponsorship of community housing. This paper employs `textually oriented discourse analysis' to examine key policy documents which have informed the development of community housing policy in Australia, and demonstrates linkages between these discourse samples, and the international tendencies in the societal order of discourse identified by Fairclough as 'democratisation', 'commodification' and 'technologisation'.
Policy language is often accepted as being a neutral medium in which ideas and an objective world can be both represented and discussed ... This approach overlooks the extent to which housing policy is contingent on social constructions of reality and the way housing policy issues are enunciated as the outcome of power relations, ideological contestation and political conflict (Jacobs and Manzi, 1996, pp. 543544).
Darcy, M. (2002). Community management: How management discourse killed participation.
The Critical Quarterly, 44(4), 32-39.
"Community management," especially of local social services, began to emerge as a policy option for government in the mid 1970s. Darcy examines community management discourse and provides some examples from the field.
To Market, to Market – Competitive Tendering and the Purchase of service in the Community Sector
a partnership research project between Michael Darcy of Social Justice Social Change, University of Western Sydney; Jane McIvor of Sector Connect and Mary Waterford of Western Sydney Community Forum.
This research is the culmination of several years of research, followed up by focus groups and seminars.
The evidence gathered in this study and the examples cited demonstrate the distance which is opening up between government and its partners in the delivery of community welfare services in NSW, and which threatens a long standing and productive relationship. Adoption of the recommendations of this report might begin to close that distance.
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