- Between weeks 8 and 12, each student should provide a weekly reflection (500 words) on the data you have collected to date.
- What data did you collect?
- What is your initial impression of the data?
- How have the data you have collected this week changed/progressed your thinking about your research project?
- What challenges did you encounter while collecting the data?
- What are your next steps?
- 2-3 annotations.
This week, I really felt like my research project has gained more momentum in terms of finalizing the scope of my project as well as in terms of the sources that I have collected so far. I checked out six books from the HL library that provide perspectives on the history of homelessness, its emergence as a social problem, the historical roots of the conflation of homelessness with deviancy, the respective criminalization laws, as well as about social policies. In addition to this, I also checked out books looking into the social resistance movements and the ways in which individuals experiencing homelessness create a collective identity among themselves in order to survive, and about the disproportionate effects of homelessness in terms of race, status, and social capital in society. Finally, I also intend to look at social services and the form of aid they provide, especially in embracing an intersectional approach, based on another book that I had checked out. Over the next few weeks, I will be collecting important information from these books, while also complementing the research with scholarly articles, newspaper articles, and information from national databases and websites from social services. I also reached out to three individuals from Preble Street, Maine Volunteer Lawyers Project, and Homeless Health Partners in Portland, ME to potentially interview them over the phone or in-person. This will allow me to gain different perspectives in regards to the ways in which social services attempt to provide aid to those individuals experiencing homelessness while also keeping in mind of certain exclusionary practices that they may have, preventing them from providing aid to everyone, especially those who may have a criminal record as a product of the criminalization laws in place.
In terms of the research itself, the book by David Wagner Confronting Homelessness: Poverty, Politics, and the Failure of Social Policy and the article by Amster Randall “Patterns of Exclusion: Sanitizing Space, Criminalizing Homelessness” both understand homelessness as being socially constructed in a way based on dominant perceptions that see individuals experiencing homelessness as potential threats to the social order and capitalism. Randall explains homelessness through the disease metaphor whereby individuals are immediately associated with filth, disease, and disorder that need to be erased and excluded from society. Moreover, he describes about the conflation of disorder, that is inherent in homeless populations, with crime that prompts for greater social control (Randall, 2003). This, therefore, is indicative of the construction of homelessness as being deviant from the mainstream society that needs to be controlled. Wagner’s book looks into a historical approach of homelessness with the first crisis beginning in 1870s and 1880s, to the Great Depression, to post-Great Depression era in the 40s and 50s, all the way to the public’s acceptance of homelessness as a social problem beginning in the 80s. The author discusses about those populations that may or not be “deserving” of aid from the government as well as from social services (Wagner, 2012).
As a whole, this research will further my project as it is important to recognize the historical aspects of homelessness and those roots that have led to its conflation with deviancy. This research prompts me to further examine historical legislations and criminalization laws leading to the current state of homelessness. In terms of challenges, I can see that there is abundant information about homelessness in general but very little in Maine, especially in terms of the criminalization laws in place here. My next steps include reading those books in gaining a more holistic perspective on homelessness, scholarly articles to understand the conflation of homelessness with deviancy, and newspaper articles and information from databases to gain more insight into the different forms of aid provided by social services and their potentially exclusionary practices.
Randall, Amster. 2003.”Patters of Exclusion: Sanitizing Space, Criminalizing Homelessness.” Social Justice 30(1): 195-221
Wagner, David. 2012. Confronting Homelessness: Poverty, Politics, and the Failure of Social Policy. Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. Boulder, Colorado.
Lopez’ Comments:
Swapnika, it looks like you are making great progress on your revamped project. If you can interview those three social service providers in Portland, then that would be great. Remember, if you are doing a podcast you will want to make sure that your audio is captured without much background noise. Not sure if this can be done over the phone.