Nominations: An actor-network approach

This paper offers an empirical assessment of the potential benefits to housing studies of actor-network theory (ANT). Gabriel & Jacobs’ paper in this journal has suggested that certain ‘classic’ sites of housing studies are being re-imagined by studies within the post-social turn. This paper is an empirical study of the nominations process, through which registered social landlords are enrolled into allocating social housing to households prioritised by local authorities on their housing registers. The study draws on three ANT stories—the nominations agreement, monitoring nominations and exclusions—to demonstrate how human and non-human actors interact. In particular, it considers how agreements, numbers, unsurveyed ‘customers’, or boxes on forms, talk, who does the talking and the purposes of such talking. The paper concludes with occasionally sceptical observations about the utility of ANT to housing research.