Drifting Along or Dropping into Homelessness: A Class Analysis of Responses to Homelessness

:  Prominent assumptions about street homelessness and how it should be addressed originate primarily from middle class domiciled worldviews. This article draws on interviews with 58 street homeless people to develop a typology for explaining different forms of homelessness resulting from difference...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Antipode 2012-09, Vol.44 (4), p.1209-1226
Main Authors: Hodgetts, Darrin, Stolte, Ottilie, Waimarie Nikora, Linda, Groot, Shiloh
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
abjection
Bgi / Prodig
class
Class Analysis
Class Differences
Class Politics
Culture
domicile
Homelessness
Human geography
Interviews
Middle class
Middle classes
New Zealand
Oceania
Politics
Social Distance
Social policy
social services
Typology
Worldview
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Summary::  Prominent assumptions about street homelessness and how it should be addressed originate primarily from middle class domiciled worldviews. This article draws on interviews with 58 street homeless people to develop a typology for explaining different forms of homelessness resulting from differences in class of origin. The concepts of social distance and abjection are used to illustrate how class politics manifests in street homelessness and in responses to this issue. Many of our homeless participants referred to two broad groupings of homeless people who display distinct experiences and cultures in their daily lives on the streets. Drifters are people who do not experience homelessness as a sharp disjuncture from their previously housed life. Street homelessness is a continuation of the hardships of their lower class backgrounds. Droppers are people who have “fallen” on hard times and aspire to return to mainstream middle class lifeworlds. Differentiating between these two groups provides a space for defamiliarizing dominant understandings of, and current generic responses to, homelessness and foregrounds the need for reorienting services to better meet the needs of drifters.
ISSN:0066-4812
1467-8330
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-8330.2011.00977.x