Homelessness Felt

Catherine Robinson

doi:10.5130/csr.v15i1.2060

PDF

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)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

a) Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed undera Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share and adapt the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

b) Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

c) Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Open Access Citation Advantage Service). Where authors include such a work in an institutional repository or on their website (ie. a copy of a work which has been published in a UTS ePRESS journal, or a pre-print or post-print version of that work), we request that they include a statement that acknowledges the UTS ePRESS publication including the name of the journal, the volume number and a web-link to the journal item.

d) Authors should be aware that the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License permits readers to share (copy and redistribute the work in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the work) for any purpose, even commercially, provided they also give appropriate credit to the work, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do these things in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests you or your publisher endorses their use.

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.

Article Sidebar

Main Article Content

Abstract

Article Details

Catherine Robinson, University of Technology, Sydney