The Re-specification of Concepts in the Morphogenetic Approach for Property Market Research

Abstract

The Morphogenetic Approach (MA) was developed to explain social structural change processes by sociologist Margaret Archer in 1995. MA became a remarkable and much-debated approach shortly in social sciences because of its unique consideration about structure and agency dualism. Although MA has been discussed intensively in the science world, its appropriateness to real world situations has slightly been questioned by scholars and it has been applied very few to social fields other than education. Starting from this gap, this study aims to introduce MA to property researchers and turn it into a practical methodological tool which may easily be used to explain any social change process in urban and property studies. The study attempts to test the suitability of this methodological tool for property market studies as an alternative social field and seeks the answer of this basic question: “Can we explain the change process of a property market with the help of concepts and methodological framework in MA?”. An in-depth and comparative literature review method has been used in this methodology-focused research. The research reveals that despite some of its weaknesses, MA is a useful methodological tool which may be used in explaining the change process of a local property market. The study also makes some important theoretical contributions to the structure and agency dualism.