Moral distinctions and structural inequality : homeless youth salvaging the self
- Authors: Farrugia, David , Smyth, John , Harrison, Tim
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sociological Review Vol. 64, no. 2 (2016), p. 238-255
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- Description: This paper explores the construction and contestation of moral distinctions as a dimension of contemporary structural inequality through a focus on the subjectivities constructed by young people who have experienced homelessness. Empirical material from two research projects shows that in young people's narratives of homelessness, material insecurity intertwines with the moral economies at work in neoliberal capitalist societies to construct homelessness as a state of moral disgrace, in which an ungovernable experience is experienced as a moral failure. When young people gain access to secure housing, the increasing stability and security of their lives is narrated in terms of a moral adherence to personal responsibility and disciplined conduct. Overall the paper describes an economy of worth organized around distinctions between order and chaos, self-governance and unruliness, morality and disgrace, which structures the experience of homelessness. As young people's position in relation to these moral ideals reflects the material conditions of their lives, their experiences demonstrate the way that moral hierarchies contribute to the existence and experience of structural inequalities in neoliberal capitalist societies. © 2016 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review.
The ‘lamentable sight’ of homelessness and the society of the spectacle
- Authors: Gerrard, Jessica , Farrugia, David
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Urban Studies Vol. 52, no. 12 (2015), p. 2219-2233
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- Description: In this paper, we contend that the visual discourses of poverty and inequality are constructed through everyday social relations – the visual, spatial and bodily ‘encounter’ with homelessness in public space, steeped in the politics of the stigmatised Other. Bringing together Erving Goffman’s theory of everyday encounters with Guy Debord’s society of the spectacle, we explore the intersection between the ‘sight’ and ‘scene’ of homelessness and the spectacle of capital in public space. We identify how everyday encounters with homelessness perpetuate the notion that homelessness is ‘out of joint’ in relation to the spatial and aesthetic logic of capital and commodity consumption and performance. Reflecting on the repercussions of this for understanding homelessness, we explore the aesthetic dimension of the experience of homelessness within the context of a public space saturated by the social and aesthetic relations and of capital. © 2014, © Urban Studies Journal Limited 2014.
The symbolic burden of homelessness: Towards a theory of youth homelessness as embodied subjectivity
- Authors: Farrugia, David
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Sociology Vol. 47, no. 1 (2011), p. 71-87
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- Description: Young people’s subjective experience of homelessness is constituted by particular social processes which to this point have not been explicitly theorized. This article draws on qualitative interviews with young people who have experienced or are experiencing homelessness in order to argue that homelessness carries a symbolic burden, the acknowledgement of which is crucial to understanding the process of embodied subjectivity for young people who have this experience. Popular understandings construct those who experience homelessness as irresponsible, passive and obscene. Young people are aware of this, and this knowledge has consequences for the process of subjectivity for these young people. This article draws on conceptual contributions from Bourdieu and Massumi to theorize the nature of the symbolic burden of homelessness and reflect on the issues involved in understanding the process of subjectivity in the context of this kind of inequality.
Youth homelessness and individualised subjectivity
- Authors: Farrugia, David
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Youth Studies Vol. 14, no. 7 (2011), p. 761-775
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- Description: This article aims to contribute to understandings of youth homelessness and subjectivity by analysing identity construction in terms of young people’s negotiation of the structural and institutional environment of youth homelessness. I suggest that while existing literature on this topic concentrates mainly on micro-social encounters, the identities of young people experiencing homelessness can be understood as constructed by structural processes described by Ulrich Beck’s individualisation thesis. Narratives from 20 Australian young people are analysed for how their identities are constructed in their contact with the institutions which govern youth homelessness, and the way these young people make sense of the structural conditions they are facing. Two narrative trajectories are identified. In narratives describing movement into homelessness, young people articulate feelings of failure and shame, consequences of their individualised understanding of their biography. In narratives describing movement out of homelessness into a home, young people articulate feelings of strength and pride, while also describing those who remain homeless in ways which reflect the status of homelessness as a stigmatised difference. This article concludes by discussing the way that structural, institutional and subjective processes interact to produce the identities of young people experiencing homelessness, and reflects on the utility of understanding youth homelessness as a form of individualised social inequality.