Housing Trajectories. Review of Foreign and Russian Studies

Abstract

Housing trajectories are a sequence of changes in places, living conditions, and housing status for a person’s lifetime. The study of housing trajectories is a key area in housing mobility research. The article analyzes the main conceptual and methodological approaches to studying housing trajectories in the social sciences, with a focus on urban and housing research. Systematizing contemporary English-language and Russian-language sources, the authors demonstrate the structure of the international academic discussion about housing trajectories. Although discussion is built around the “structure-actor” dichotomy, researchers are looking for ways to overcome it and develop an integrative approach. A key issue is the degree and forms of agency of people who build their housing trajectories in practice. The article compares the answers offered by both structural and actor-oriented approaches. In conclusion, the authors outline the agenda for future research on housing trajectories in Russia which, on the one hand, is integrated into the international academic discussion on this topic and, on the other hand, allows expanding the geography of research and developing the existing conceptual apparatus.