"Homeless Body" Reflection


This is the first reflection I wrote for Power and Stratification pertaining to Kawash's "The Homeless Body" -- a link to the article is at the bottom of my reflection.





The opening paragraph of the assigned reading by Kawash "Homeless Body" was particularly striking as it is so true. The way Kawash talked about the "uniform response" to homeless people in everyday situations by those of us who comprise the "public" is something that I am familiar with but have never thought about as it is, like Kawash said, such a normal response. Something that she only lightly alluded to was the backward idea that homeless people do exude a kind of power over us. This power is in the form of fear. Fear is one of the most powerful forces in our society today. It can cause individuals to act impulsively and stereotypically, it can cause us to act irrationally, it can cause us to act against our own better judgment. Although this is certainly not the idea behind her article, what Kawash's writing really got me thinking about was the way fear of homeless people, this fear being the last bit of power (albeit unwarranted and unwanted), forces us to try to take this power from them by exclusion and containment as Kawash wrote extensively about. This power over us is real if not somewhat ridiculous. Although virtually every store that I shop at is at the Rideau Centre and although I live in Centretown, I find myself traveling twenty minutes out of my way to shop at Bayshore Mall. As a young female I feel frightened by the homeless population around the Rideau Centre. This argument was easily justified in my head until I read this article. I grew up in a suburban community of Toronto where there are no street dwellers and very little need to enter the city. I have never had a bad experience with a homeless individual aside from the odd overly aggressive panhandler. So why then I asked myself do I avoid downtown like the plague? After reading "Homeless Body" I realize even with having spent the first eighteen years of life well removed from homeless people and the issues/concerns that go along with them there is an intrinsic, society-wide fear of the homeless due in large part I believe to our unfamiliarity with them. I think if I was more exposed to them throughout my life I would be less apprehensive about them in general. Fear of the unknown and unfamiliar is common and understandable. However, my fear of homeless individuals due to this unfamiliarity is in large part being exasperated by the systems of exclusion and containment. Kawash wrote about the idea that "if homelessness can not be eliminated, then at least it can be shrunk down.. and isolated so the public need not feel the pressure of its presence” (p.330) but at least in my experience (or lack of) the pressure felt by their presence would have been alleviated I think, if I had more experience with their presence overall.

Homelessness is a problem that probably won't be solved in my lifetime but there should be efforts put forth to enable a peaceful and respectful living situation in which the homeless population and the general public can both utilize public space equally. Containment and exclusion is thus not the answer. Containment simply exasperates the negative situation homeless people already find themselves in and breeds the stereotypes that the general public hold regarding street dwellers. To do this, the idea of the“proper” use of public space needs to be reevaluated and the term “public” in general needs to be expanded to include those who do not necessarily fit into the usual typology. By excluding homeless people from the “general public” as Kawash discussed simply strips more power from them to the point that they do not even have power over their own bodies. Thus rendering it harder and harder for them to ever reenter mainstream society. This power over homeless people is exerted through public policies that deem it necessary. Discourse surrounding the “problem of homelessness” regards homeless individuals as people who need to be guided, paints them as the lawless vermin of society who must be separated from functioning society yet controlled by them in every aspect of life. This discourse is what leads to such stereotypes that I have succumb to and this discourse is what needs to be changed first and foremost so that we can discuss homelessness humanely and in an educated manner.


http://www.eslarp.uiuc.edu/courses/FAA391_Fall08/Readings/Kawash.%20The%20Homeless%20Body.pdf

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