Inequality, Poverty, and Neoliberal Governance

Activist Ethnography in the Homeless Sheltering Industry

Author: Vincent Lyon-Callo
ISBN: 9781551116037

Why did the rate of homelessness remain at significant levels while the US economy was supposedly booming and hundreds of millions of dollars were spent in the homeless sheltering industry? Drawing upon five years of ethnographic fieldwork in a homeless shelter in Northampton, Massachusetts, Lyon-Callo argues that homelessness must be understood within the context of increasing neoliberal policies, practices, and discourses. As advocates, activists, policy makers, and homeless people focused attention on market-based and individualized practices of reform and governance, collective efforts that challenged an economy dependent on low wage jobs, declining housing affordability, and the dismantling of the social safety net were marginalized and ignored. Homelessness continued, despite, and partly due to, the limitations of the neoliberal approach. Combining the rich detail of an ethnographic study with the systemic examination of political economic studies, this book offers a view of home

Publisher: Broadview Press
Publish Date: 2004

Subjects: Political Science / Public Policy / Social Services & Welfare, Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural, Social Science / Sociology / Urban

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Cross-Cultural Center (Location: Urban Studies & Class (URBN))