Homelessness Felt

Catherine Robinson

doi:10.5130/csr.v15i1.2060

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/csr.v15i1.2060

Catherine Robinson

University of Technology, Sydney

Abstract

The felt—as both methodology and experiential terrain—remains under-explored and under-theorised in research on homelessness. This experimental piece traces the multi-sensory engagement of ethnographic and biographic fieldwork undertaken for separate projects with homeless people in two capital cities on Australia’s east coast. The epistemological contributions and emotional dimensions of seeing, tasting, touching, smelling and listening are explored. Through a series of short ‘felt’ reflections, consideration of the critical role of corporeality in coming to know and inscribe the experiences of others is prompted. The feeling, researching body is posited as central to new, productive and holistic intertwinings with felt-experience and the mixed trajectories of grief, humour, violence and trauma that often characterise persistent homelessness are made vivid.

Issue

Vol 15 No 1 (2009): Homefronts

Section

New Writing (Peer Reviewed)

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Author Biography

Catherine Robinson, University of Technology, Sydney

Catherine Robinson has been involved in the field of homelessness research since 1999. Her research has focused on developing an understanding of how the traumas of bodily, psychological, geographical and social displacement associated with homelessness are experienced and survived. Catherine took up a full-time lecturing post in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at UTS in 2003, where she now teaches in the areas of social theory, qualitative research methods, and philosophy of social research.

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Catherine Robinson, University of Technology, Sydney