Out of Place: Homeless Mobilizations, Subcities, and Contested Landscapes / Edition 1

by Talmadge Wright

Overview

Winner of the 1998 Distinguished Scholarship Award of the Section on Marxist Sociology of the American Sociological Association

Homeless persons find themselves excluded, repressed, and displaced in all sectors of everyday life—from punitive police and city zoning practices to media stereotypes. Wandering through the streets of developing cities, these poorest of the poor have no place to go. More and more, these city developments are not simply accepted passively; rather, resistance by organized homeless groups—civil protests, squatting, and legal advocacy—spread as conditions of everyday life deteriorate for the very poor.

Out of Place: Homeless Mobilizations, Subcities, and Contested Landscapes details the development of two organized homeless resistances in two different cities. From the redevelopment protesters and squatting activities of the Student-Homeless Alliance in San Jose to the squatter camps of Tranquility City in Chicago, the differences and similarities between both groups are highlighted within the context of city redevelopment policies. Wright argues for considering homelessness not merely as an issue for social welfare, but first and foremost as a land use issue directly connected to issues of gentrification, displacement, and the cultural imaginings of what the city should look like by those who have the power to shape its development.

How the homeless combat the restructurings of everyday life, how they attempt to establish a "place" is understood within the context of tactical resistances. Questions of collective identity and collective action are raised as a result of the successful organizing efforts of homeless groups who refuse to be victims. The struggle between individual and collective forms of empowerment is highlighted, with the conclusions pointing to the necessity to rethink and go beyond the traditional solutions of more housing and job training.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780791433706
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	05/08/1997
Series:	SUNY series, INTERRUPTIONS: Border Testimony(ies) and Critical Discourse/s
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	408
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Talmadge Wright is Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Loyola University. He coauthored, with Mary Jo Huth, International Critical Perspectives on Homelessness.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Out of Place

Talking Homeless, Walking Poor
Constructing the Homeless, Deconstructing the "Poor"
Academic Segmentation of Homeless Bodies
Boundary Work and "Speaking for Others"

1. Social-Physical Space, Socal Imaginaries, and Homeless Identities

Social Imaginary Significations and Everyday Life
The Production of Space and the Location of Identity in Everyday Life
The "Fixing" of Partial Truths, Difference, Identities, and Bodies in Space
Gendered and Racialized Bodies: the "Other" and Social-Physical Space
Degeneracy, Moral Worth, and the "Scaling of Bodies"
Social-Physical Space, Social Imaginaries, and the City

2. Urban Redevelopment Visions, Social Imaginaries, Polarized Topographies

Economic Restructuring, Downsizing, and Homelessness
City Redevelopment Strategies: Inclusion or Exclusion?
Culture and Images of Redevelopment
Polarized Topographies, Spatial Hierarchies

Producing/Consuming Pleasure Spaces
Producing/Consuming Refuse Spaces
Producing/Consuming Functional Spaces

Zoned and Redeveloped Exclusions and Dispersions

3. Making Pleasure and Refuse: Chicago and San Jose

Chicago

Changing Chicago Visions
Polarized Topographies I: The Near South Side/South Loop
Polarized Topographies II: The Near West Side

San Jose

Problematic Economics
Polarized Topographies: Housing, Race, Redevelopment
Changing San Jose Visions
New Pleasure Spaces: The Guadalupe River Park Project and the Downtown Plan
Exclusive Redevelopment: Dispersing the Poor

4. Authoritative Strategies, Borders, and Homeless Containment

Institutional, Cultural, and Market Exclusions
Homeless Social and Cultural Assimilations
Street and Store: Exclusions and Repressions
Political and Media Displacements
Shelters and Surveillance: Exclusion, Assimilation, and Containment

5. Homeless Mobilizations and Spatial Resistances

The University and Homeless Mobilization: The Student-Homeless Alliance
Community Groups and Homeless Mobilization: Tranquility City

6. Homeless Placemaking, Collective Identity, and Collective Action

Resistant Heterotopias: Site and Community

The Bridge
The Catacombs
Tranquility City

SHA and Hut Dweller Differences from Other Homeless Populations
Collective and Individual Gains

7. Conclusions

Challenging the Disappearance of Jobs, Housing, and Health Care
Challenging City Redevelopment Strategies
Service-Learning: A Pedagogy to End Homelessness?
Individual versus Collective Empowerment

Appendix: San Jose's Housing Shortage

Notes

References

Index

Editorial Reviews

"Wright's significant book is among the few that present life on the street through the eyes of the participants, providing a much needed and unique vantage point." — David Wagner, University of Southern Maine

From the Publisher