Moral distinctions and structural inequality : homeless youth salvaging the self
- Farrugia, David, Smyth, John, Harrison, Tim
- Authors: Farrugia, David , Smyth, John , Harrison, Tim
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sociological Review Vol. 64, no. 2 (2016), p. 238-255
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- 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.
- Authors: Farrugia, David , Smyth, John , Harrison, Tim
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sociological Review Vol. 64, no. 2 (2016), p. 238-255
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- 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.
Youth, homelessness, and embodiment: Moralised aesthetics and affective suffering
- Authors: Farrugia, David
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: TASA 2010
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: This paper explores the process of embodiment for young people experiencing homelessness. Drawing on interviews with 20 young people, I relate descriptions of embodied feelings and practices to the moral and aesthetic regulatory norms which construct bodies in contemporary modern societies. Young people experiencing homelessness are excluded from the private sphere, meaning they are unable to practice the reflexive body practices required of modern subjects. These young people also lack access to consumer goods, meaning they are unable to construct the forms of aesthetic embodiment expected of young people in a consumer society. The outcome of these exclusions is a form of embodied suffering. Drawing on Massumi‟s concept of affect, I describe the means by which power relations come to constitute embodied feelings, and analyse the emergence of reflexive body practices by young people negotiating the move from homelessness into home. This paper therefore traces the means by which structural inequality is embodied and results in affective suffering for the disadvantaged.
- Description: E1
- Authors: Farrugia, David
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: TASA 2010
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: This paper explores the process of embodiment for young people experiencing homelessness. Drawing on interviews with 20 young people, I relate descriptions of embodied feelings and practices to the moral and aesthetic regulatory norms which construct bodies in contemporary modern societies. Young people experiencing homelessness are excluded from the private sphere, meaning they are unable to practice the reflexive body practices required of modern subjects. These young people also lack access to consumer goods, meaning they are unable to construct the forms of aesthetic embodiment expected of young people in a consumer society. The outcome of these exclusions is a form of embodied suffering. Drawing on Massumi‟s concept of affect, I describe the means by which power relations come to constitute embodied feelings, and analyse the emergence of reflexive body practices by young people negotiating the move from homelessness into home. This paper therefore traces the means by which structural inequality is embodied and results in affective suffering for the disadvantaged.
- Description: E1
Responsibility, intersubjectivity, and recognition: The case of Australian young people experiencing homelessness
- Authors: Farrugia, David
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: TASA 2009
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: This paper draws on qualitative interviews with young people to theorise the relationship between notions of responsibility and the process of intersubjectivity and recognition for young people experiencing homelessness. It is argued that homelessness as a cultural trope carries a symbolic burden, associated with notions of irresponsibility, passivity, and moral failure. The paper argues that for young people who are or have experienced homelessness, these associations must be reflexively negotiated in the course of managing their intersubjective ties to achieve the recognition as worthy subjects which is a condition of meaningful subjectivity. This recognition is achieved in cultures of sociability in the context of literal homelessness, although when some young people move out of literal homelessness, they seek intersubjective ties from new sources of recognition associated with symbolic capital that the young people themselves recognise. Part of this process is a definition of previous intersubjective ties which is characterised by notions of irresponsibility and moral failure. Furthermore, young people in this project reconstruct the notion of responsibility, allowing the experience of morally worthy intersubjective selves in the context of the kind of institutional dependence intrinsic to the experience of homelessness.
- Description: E1
- Authors: Farrugia, David
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: TASA 2009
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: This paper draws on qualitative interviews with young people to theorise the relationship between notions of responsibility and the process of intersubjectivity and recognition for young people experiencing homelessness. It is argued that homelessness as a cultural trope carries a symbolic burden, associated with notions of irresponsibility, passivity, and moral failure. The paper argues that for young people who are or have experienced homelessness, these associations must be reflexively negotiated in the course of managing their intersubjective ties to achieve the recognition as worthy subjects which is a condition of meaningful subjectivity. This recognition is achieved in cultures of sociability in the context of literal homelessness, although when some young people move out of literal homelessness, they seek intersubjective ties from new sources of recognition associated with symbolic capital that the young people themselves recognise. Part of this process is a definition of previous intersubjective ties which is characterised by notions of irresponsibility and moral failure. Furthermore, young people in this project reconstruct the notion of responsibility, allowing the experience of morally worthy intersubjective selves in the context of the kind of institutional dependence intrinsic to the experience of homelessness.
- Description: E1
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