Research approach or policy problem : which comes first?

In the 25 years since its publication, Housing and Social Theory (Kemeny 1992) has accumulated hundreds of citations, inspired and informed numerous theses (including mine), and stimulated scores of seminars and conference sessions. The book drew together the threads of Kemeny’s work up to that time to articulate a clear message: that the emerging discipline of Housing Studies should strenuously avoid the tendency to isolate itself from broader social debates and controversies. In the introduction Kemeny (1992, xvi) warns that “there is a real danger that abstracted empiricism and policy-determined research will become entrenched, thus stifling or at least retarding, the emergence of critical and reflexive housing research”.