[URBANTH-L]Reader on the Anthropology of Homelessness

Stephen C. Maack smaack at earthlink.net
Tue Feb 10 12:57:24 EST 2009


Don't forget the following:  

Jackson Underwood 1993 The Bridge People:  Daily Life in a Camp of the
Homeless.  (New York:  University Press of America).

Elliot Liebow 1995 Tell Them Who I Am:  The Lives of Homeless Women.  (New
York:  Penguin Press).  This was originally published in 1993 by The Free
Press, then republished by Penguin Press and is by the author of the famous
sociological/ethnographic work "Tally's Corner."

Anthony Marcus 2006 Where Have All The Homeless Gone?  The Making and
Unmaking of a Crisis.  Berghahn Dislocations, Volume 1  (New York:  Berghahn
Books).  

Also, I don't have a specific reference on hand, but several years ago the
Rand Corporation and Santa Monica Public Library did research and/or
evaluation on a project providing internet access to homeless people in
Santa Monica as a way for the homeless to keep in touch with one another and
with friends/relatives.  Otherwise contacts depended on face-to-face
meetings and were somewhat hit-and-miss because of the itinerant nature of
being homeless.  Anthropologists were involved with the study and it should
be of special interest to Janmeilah Roberson.  Check the Rand website for
publications and reports regarding homelessness, they've been involved with
a number of homeless related studies.

When you are farther along in your research, Janmeilah Roberson, please
contact me or Gillian Grebler (gggrebler at verizon.net), who is also on this
list, about the possibility of doing a presentation to SCAAN (Southern
California Applied Anthropology Network) on the findings of your
ethnographic research.  I'm sure that SCAAN members would be interested in
your findings about homelessness in our service area.  Also, Jam, you might
want to check with PATH (People Assisting the Homeless), Homeless Health
Care, and Shelter First, three local LA area non-profits working with
homeless people before or as you get into your ethnographic research.  Also,
make contact with Kyeyoung Park in the UCLA Department of Anthropology, who
has done extensive research in  South Central LA in the past, and the
Applied Anthropology program at CSU, Long Beach.  Good luck with the
ethnographic research on homelessness in LA and Orange Counties!!

Best Regards,
Steve Maack

Dr. Stephen C. Maack
DBA REAP Change Consultants
2872 Nicada Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90077-2024
U.S.A.
E-Mail: consultant at reapchange.com 
Telephone: 310-384-9717
FAX: 310-474-4161
http://www.reapchange.com

 
-----Original Message-----
From: urbanth-l-bounces at lists.ysu.edu
[mailto:urbanth-l-bounces at lists.ysu.edu] On Behalf Of Jahmeilah Roberson
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 9:24 AM
To: kflan at mindspring.com
Cc: David Slater; URBANTH-L at lists.ysu.edu
Subject: Re: [URBANTH-L]Reader on the Anthropology of Homelessness

I am also interested in the same issues. Over the past month I have begun to
undertake an ethnographic study of homeless populations in Southern
California's Los Angeles and Orange Counties. I'm really interested in
issues of ownership as it spans across the spaces they inhabit as well as
the digital and non-digital material artifacts they carry. In general, being
that I'm in an Informatics department, I am interested in the relationship
between technology and social inclusion for marginalized communities with an
emphasis on the homeless.

I have begun to collect some papers and books but could always use more.
Here are some of the best I've found:
	David Snow (he's a professor in Sociology at my university, UCI, and
has done extensive research on homelessness in the US)
		- Down on their Luck (book)
		- The Outcomes of Homeless Mobilization: The Influence of
Organization, Disruption, Political Mediation, and Framing.
	        - Identity Work Among the Homeless: The Verbal Construction
and Avowal of Personal Identities.

	Tim Cresswell (he's a professor in Geography at the University of
London and has done extensive research on mobility sometimes relating to
tramps)
	       - Embodiment, Power and the Politics of Mobility: The Case of
Female Tramps and Hobos
	       - Night discourse: producing/ consuming meaning on the street
	       - The Tramp in America (book)
	
	Maria Cecilia Loschiavo dos Santos (she's a professor of design at
the University of Sao Paulo. Most of her writing is in Portuguese but she
has a really interesting paper where she studied the homeless in Los
Angeles, Tokyo, and Sao Paulo so there may be some good references in there
especially related to homelessness in Tokyo (or Japan in general). She
studies the way the homeless recycle and reuse materials and the artifacts
they create in this process.
		- The Vital Package Living on the Streets in Global Cities:
Sao Paulo, Los Angeles and Tokyo

I also have a few papers related to consumption practices of the homeless
that have come out of economics departments and what not.  
Feel free to ping me separately if you have questions. I have spoken with
both David and Maria and can say that in my experiences David is slightly
harder to get in touch with via email and Maria is really quick to respond.

Best,
jam

--
Jahmeilah Richardson Roberson
PhD Student
Department of Informatics
University of California, Irvine

On Feb 9, 2009, at 4:49 PM, kflan at mindspring.com wrote:

> You might be interested in the work of Louisa Stark. She's an urban 
> anthropologist (was teaching as an adjunct anthropology professor at 
> Arizona State University, but I'm not sure if that's still the case 
> with all the recent budget woes and staff cuts at ASU) and is the 
> executive director for the Community Housing Partnership in Phoenix, 
> Arizona (a nonprofit concerned with helping very low-income families 
> find and secure affordable housing).
>
> A good portion of her anthropological research, professional work, and 
> activism has centered on various homelessness issues (mostly in the 
> United States), so you might want to do Web and online library 
> searches for her articles, books, etc.
>
> --Kerri Flanagan
>
> -----Original Message-----
>> From: David Slater <d-slater at sophia.ac.jp>
>> Sent: Jan 21, 2009 2:50 AM
>> To: URBANTH-L at lists.ysu.edu
>> Subject: [URBANTH-L]Reader on the Anthropology of Homelessness
>>
>> Hello Everyone,
>>    I am teaching a fieldwork course on Tokyo Homeless--which a large 
>> and growing problem in neoliberal Japan. I am looking for a reader on 
>> the cross-cultural issues, including research, of homelessness. Has 
>> anyone used one with any particular success?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> David
>>
>>
>> --
>> David H. Slater
>> Faculty of Liberal Arts
>> Sophia University, Tokyo
>>
>> The Sophia server rejects emails at times. Should your mail to me get 
>> returned, please resend to: dhslater at gmail.com. Sorry for the 
>> inconvenience.
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>
>
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