Visibility work in the Housing Association context: case study evidence from England and France

Orlandi, Caterina Maria (2024) Visibility work in the Housing Association context: case study evidence from England and France. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

In our contemporary society, visibility is commonly thought to be a positive attribute that plays a crucial role in influencing public opinion, prompting social change, and advancing collective or individual goals. Conversely, invisibility is usually associated with discrimination, poverty, and illegality. Social theory has provided a more nuanced and indepth conceptualisation of visibility, arguing that visibility regimes that determine who is seen, who is not, and who should be seen, are the result of complex and context-dependent social, political, and technical processes. However, empirical research has continued to portray visibility as a set of dichotomous ‘on-off’ adaptive strategies that individuals and organisations undertake to pursue their goals in a single context, usually the workplace. This has left unexplored the work done to disrupt, maintain, or create such ‘visibility rules of the game’ in deprived everyday contexts where socially and economically excluded individuals remain ‘invisible’. This research attempts to address this gap by answering the research question: How do organisations and individuals create, maintain, or disrupt visibility regimes to tackle social and exclusion processes in deprived areas of the Global North? In doing so, this thesis advances the notion of ‘visibility work’ based on a qualitative multiple case study comprising deprived Housing Association neighbourhoods in the southeast of England and northwest of France. Analysing the ‘visibility work’ conducted in deprived areas by Housing Association organisations, and by residents of such areas who are considered to be ‘furthest away from the labour market’, has revealed that the core contribution of this study is threefold: 1) it theorises a model of visibility work; 2) it conceptualises such visibility work as being conducted through patterns, which may differ in content and aim even when they are collectively intended to tackle a common objective; 3) it highlights three forms of agency, namely mediated, rhythmed, and territorial, that capture nuances of the agency of social actors who are typically considered as passive, immobile, and lacking the capacity to make progress in their lives. These core contributions provide unique insights into the visibility work carried out by residents of deprived areas in the Global North, and by the organisations seeking to support them. The findings also contribute theoretically to the literature on visibility and institutional theory, and provide practical implications for policy that aims to tackle social and economic exclusion.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Norwich Business School
Depositing User:	Nicola Veasy
Date Deposited:	11 Jul 2024 10:16
Last Modified:	11 Jul 2024 10:16
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/95867
DOI:

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