The necropolitics of encampment abatements: Narrative political ecologies of unsheltered homelessness
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Keywords: homelessness, necropolitics, political ecology
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract
Authors:
Jeff Rose, University of Utah
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Abstract
Similar to affective political ecology (Singh 2018), emotional political ecology approaches explore “the intimate spaces of the mind, body, and household as sites for the (re)production of broader power relations, materially and ideologically” (Egge and Ajibade 2021, 270). What, then, are the narratives produced and maintained by marginalized communities engaging with near daily threats from numerous institutionalized structures and forces?
This research seeks to address the broader geographic question of why people experiencing unsheltered homelessness choose particular spaces for encampments, livelihoods, and quotidian experiences. On-site interviews (n=20) and surveys (n=60) were conducted with people experiencing unsheltered homelessness along an urban riparian corridor in Salt Lake City, Utah. Analyses reveal that beyond the basic utilitarian nature of particular encampment spaces, sociospatial arrangements of dwellings provide residents with interconnected notions of safety and community. Interviews demonstrated how flattened or leveled emotions and affect were leveraged by encampment residents to address, cope with, and respond to concerns of deprivation. Residents felt both isolated and exposed. Simultaneously, the spatial location of encampments are seen as serving as a quasi-effective defense against state sanctioned abatements, the dispossessing, “cleansing,” and spatial purging of people and possessions. Residents’ disaffection was a stabilizing emotion for dealing with these concerns. These findings are filtered through a theoretical lens of necropolitics (Mbembe, 2019) to more clearly understand and explain the perceived vulnerability and disposability of the lives of people facing homelessness, and the emotional and affective capacities to respond to ongoing marginalization and displacement.
The necropolitics of encampment abatements: Narrative political ecologies of unsheltered homelessness
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Paper Abstract