Public policy and citizen security: continuities and discontinuities in the discourses and practices of recognition of homelessness (Bogotá, 1995-2015)

• Published in: Revista colombiana de sociología 2018-01, Vol.41 (1Supl), p.137
• Main Author: Torres-Ruiz, Jacqueline
• Format: Article
• Language: eng ; spa
• Subjects: Central government; Citizens; Civil rights; Critical theory; Discourse analysis; Ethics; Global local relationship; Government agencies; Homeless people; Inequality; Law; Public officials; Public policy; Security; Stereotypes
• ISSN: 0120-159X; 2256-5485
• DOI: 10.15446/rcs.v41n1Supl.75034

Within the socially established cultural, moral, and legal boundaries, there are considerable differences in the ways of understanding homelessness globally, the factors that cause or trigger and foster permanence on the streets, and their associated characteristics. This phenomenon represents a special type of conflict that needs to be put on the agendas of local, regional, and national governments. In the case of Bogotá, official discourses and practices, particularly those of public security (legal and illegal) have created an image of homeless persons by stereotyping them as producers and reproducers of the fears of the city’s “normal” inhabitants. Following García-Canclini (2004) and Fraser (1997), the article affirms the need to recognize and address homelessness as a historical and sociological phenomenon that requires further understanding from the perspective of inequality and difference. Consequently, it sets out to review the continuities and discontinuities in the discourses and practices of recognition of homelessness between 1995 and 2015, from the viewpoint of Verón's (2004) theory of discourse and Van Dijk’s (2003) Critical Discourse Analysis (cda). cda makes it possible to track macro-textual and micro-textual elements. The former include global and local concepts, positions of the actors involved, and causal explanations, among others, while the latter take into account ways of constituting the group through nouns, adjectives, and verbs found in the normative documents that provide the legal basis for political decisions. The period of analysis was chosen because the administrations involved were situated in a context of constitutional change that saw the birth of the social State based on the rule of law and the formalization of an institutional apparatus aimed at guaranteeing citizens’ rights. At city level, this translated into the creation of specialized and technical government agencies, as well as the organization of public and private actors.