New tenure, new challenges

Abstract

A new welcome to Housing and Society from the Joint-Editors-in-Chief, Richard Dunning and Thomas Moore. In December 2022 we were appointed by the journal owners, the Housing Education and Research Association (HERA), as the new editors. The Association is a diverse network of housing professionals, and it is testimony to this diversity that Housing and Society has been at the forefront of new knowledge across housing research and practice for the last fifty years. We are delighted to support the Housing and Society community as we progress the journal over the next four years. This is a key moment for housing scholarship’s role in society. With the growth in acceptance of the need for interdisciplinary research, housing stands as a key object and structure that requires insights from across aesthetic, economic, pistic, social, political, and so many more aspects. As scholars of housing and society, we grapple with thorny disciplinary theoretical and empirical challenges within these aspects and the relationship between them. Yet, we also need to consider how this knowledge relates to societal housing concerns. There is an awareness that housing scholarship, as with many areas of public life, has not paid enough attention to the meaning of justice in diverse societies and where it has, sometimes failed to articulate this clearly to societal powers. Whilst scholarship continues to delve deeper, new challenges are also occurring. The ongoing climate change crisis is already requiring new housing scholarship: understanding forcible migration and new locations of housing are necessary; new adaptation instruments are required for those communities remaining in at risk sites; and new relationships between actors, agencies, households, and societies need to be explored and theorized. Many countries are experiencing changing societal patterns, with structural changes to: the age of citizens; wealth distribution; legal security; and norms of societal coalescence all impacting on the relationship between housing and society. Your scholarship is needed to contemplate contemporary and future societal housing needs, and we look forward to partnering with you in disseminating this knowledge. The diversity of content in Housing and Society was the key draw for us in taking on the journal. Our own research interests range from land use planning for housing development (Dunning et al., 2021) to community-led housing activism (Moore, 2018) and cut across research and theory (Dunning, 2017; Inch et al, 2020; Moore, 2021) and education and practice (Moore, 2022). We are passionate about drawing international practice communities and academics together, to produce new knowledge and influence housing outcomes, and it is in this vein that we will seek to encourage the journal in the future. Whilst much of the editorial work has now transitioned outside of the USA for the first time in the journal’s history, we intend to continue a strong connection with the heritage of housing scholarship within the USA and hope to continue the tradition of detailed discussion of the journal at the HERA annual conference. HOUSING AND SOCIETY 2023, VOL. 50, NO. 2, 157–161 https://doi.org/10.1080/08882746.2023.2218710