Being somewhere: young homeless people in inner-city Sydney

Abstract

Drawing on in-depth interviews, participant observation and my experiences of working with young homeless people in refuges, in this thesis I develop an analysis which identifies some key spatial practices through which young people negotiate the field of homelessness in inner-city Sydney. The particular contribution of this work is to consider homelessness in terms of a theorised understanding of the broader role of place within homelessness, rather than in terms of the immediacy of cause or solution. While acknowledging the importance of the large body of work which has focused on the structural causes of homelessness and the need for a clear policy-oriented definition of homelessness, I develop an alternative agenda for a focus on young homeless people's struggles to feel 'in place' and 'at home'. These struggles throw into relief the need to understand young people's homelessness in terms of a search, not just for a place to stay, but for a place to belong. Utilising the rich body of work which explores the important relation of place and subjectivity, I connect young people's experiences of place within homelessness with the broader social and phenomenological concepts of 'displacement' and 'implacement'. In particular, I focus on the spatial relations through which young people construct and organise their daily paths and begin to make sense of their often painful and chaotic lives and their fears about the future. I contextualise their fragile experiences of being somewhere in a broader spatial structure of constant movement and grief and feelings of alienation from the wider community. I consider the enduring role of past homes in their continuing struggle to piece together a way of ‘being at home’ both in terms of drawing together a network of physical places of safety and in terms of experiencing a sense of acceptance, recognition and rootedness through place. I point to the critical need to include broader understandings of both home and homelessness in addressing the displacement which shapes the experience of homelessness for young people and impacts on the success of immediate measures developed to respond to it.