A life lived on the corner

<p>This thesis explores the everyday life of Brother, a well-known street dweller and local identity, who lives everyday life on a busy street corner in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. Brother’s way of doing ‘being ordinary’ attracts strong public curiosity, media interest, and monitoring by informal and formal social control mechanisms, including medical intervention. This research provides a comprehensive account of what can happen to those at the margins who dare, or are impelled, to do things differently. My research is inspired by the longstanding tradition of street corner sociology, and grounded within the sociology of everyday life orientation. My street ethnography involved participant observation over a three-and-a-half year period. In that time, I observed Brother and other street people, capturing the depth and nuanced complexities of a life lived in the open. Central to this thesis is an examination of the ways in which wider social structures and institutions bear upon the local micro-setting, in particular how classification processes act to ‘make, remake, and unmake’ people. Three core concepts of space, body, and social interaction are explored to examine, through the situatedness of everyday talk and social action, how social meanings are locally produced and understood. I argue that by developing spatial, bodily, and interactional methods, Brother has established organisational and social capacities, and lines of conduct, that are firmly founded in autonomous actions. Through his rejection of ascribed ‘homeless’ membership and his clear embracement of a street lifestyle, Brother’s street life is shown to subvert and trouble normative understandings, while engendering and maintaining a lived sense of home in the city he calls his whare [house]. My research contributes an Aotearoa New Zealand perspective to the international sociological street corner landscape, and provides a Wellington perspective to the emerging domestic literature on street life. More broadly, my study aims to stimulate critical sociological reflection regarding different modes of being and belonging in the world and how we, as a society, respond to this.</p>

A life lived on the corner

<p>This thesis explores the everyday life of Brother, a well-known street dweller and local identity, who lives everyday life on a busy street corner in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. Brother’s way of doing ‘being ordinary’ attracts strong public curiosity, media interest, and monitoring by informal and formal social control mechanisms, including medical intervention. This research provides a comprehensive account of what can happen to those at the margins who dare, or are impelled, to do things differently. My research is inspired by the longstanding tradition of street corner sociology, and grounded within the sociology of everyday life orientation. My street ethnography involved participant observation over a three-and-a-half year period. In that time, I observed Brother and other street people, capturing the depth and nuanced complexities of a life lived in the open. Central to this thesis is an examination of the ways in which wider social structures and institutions bear upon the local micro-setting, in particular how classification processes act to ‘make, remake, and unmake’ people. Three core concepts of space, body, and social interaction are explored to examine, through the situatedness of everyday talk and social action, how social meanings are locally produced and understood. I argue that by developing spatial, bodily, and interactional methods, Brother has established organisational and social capacities, and lines of conduct, that are firmly founded in autonomous actions. Through his rejection of ascribed ‘homeless’ membership and his clear embracement of a street lifestyle, Brother’s street life is shown to subvert and trouble normative understandings, while engendering and maintaining a lived sense of home in the city he calls his whare [house]. My research contributes an Aotearoa New Zealand perspective to the international sociological street corner landscape, and provides a Wellington perspective to the emerging domestic literature on street life. More broadly, my study aims to stimulate critical sociological reflection regarding different modes of being and belonging in the world and how we, as a society, respond to this.</p>

The image of a modern ideal city in different age groups

Город является средством для образа жизни. Когда обеспеченные люди на досуге посещают культурные мероприятия, для малообеспеченных слоев населения именно улицы города являются единственной альтернативой телевидению как способу провести свое свободное время. К сожалению, современные города являются более выгодными для передвижения автомобилей, а не жизни людей. Мы должны сделать все, чтобы это было не так. Идеальный город - тот, в котором людям нравится быть на улице. Люди не используют общественное пространство города только для передвижения – они там общаются, отдыхают, целуются. Поэтому приоритетом городских властей должно быть развитие общественного пространства. Рассматривается проблема изучения жизнеспособности населения города как социально-психологического явления. Акцентируется внимание на ценностно-аффективном компоненте. Были определены характеристики благоприятного будущего города, которые связаны в первую очередь с внешним видом, комфортностью и перспективой развития города. Направленность активности горожан констатируется в сфере саморазвития (необходимость увеличения учебных заведений) и трудовой занятости (наличие мест для работы). В ответах преобладают индивидуальные потребности, своеобразная эгоцентричность по отношению к пространству проживания. The city is a means for a way of life. When well-off people attend cultural events at their leisure, for low-income segments of the population, it is the streets of the city that are the only alternative to television as a way to spend their free time. Unfortunately, modern cities are more profitable for the movement of cars, rather than people's lives. We must do everything to make sure that this is not the case. The ideal city is one in which people like to be on the street. People do not use the public space of the city only for movement – they communicate there, relax, kiss. Therefore, the priority of the city authorities should be the development of public space. The problem of studying the viability of the city's population as a socio-psychological phenomenon is considered. Attention is focused on the value-affective component. The characteristics of a favorable future of the city were determined, which are primarily related to the appearance, comfort and prospects for the development of the city. The orientation of the activity of citizens is stated in the field of self-development (the need to increase educational institutions) and employment (the availability of places to work). The answers are dominated by individual needs, a kind of egocentricity in relation to the living space

Deradicalization Programs: Recommendations for Policy and Practice

Involvement in violent extremism is not a one-way street. People can, and do, leave violent extremist movements. Understanding how and why they leave (or want to leave) constitutes actionable knowledge that brings immense practical benefits. Such knowledge may help in designing initiatives aimed at persuading people to leave violent extremist groups as well as reducing the risk of re-engagement in violent extremism in the future. Deradicalization programs have much to offer but they are not a magic solution to a highly complex, fluid problem. Not everyone who engages in violent extremism is necessarily going to benefit from such interventions, and no program can ever expect to produce complete success. Yet, they continue to show promise. Deradicalization programs can be effective for some and, if subjected to greater evaluation efforts, may prove far more beneficial than is currently believed. Despite an abundance (and apparent increase) in programming, a continued lack of evaluation work both fuels skepticism and hinders our ability to believe that there is a strong future for these programs.

The Invisible Indigence of the Homeless

This article analyzes indigence as a social phenomenon and discusses the factors that have contributed to its permanence over time. The study focuses on street people in Belém, Pará state, Brazil, as an expression of indigence and how public authorities have treated the issue. To provide context, we discuss 19th century social hygiene polices and show how attitudes toward the homeless and thus treatment of this group has changed over time. The current homeless situation is related to the effects of neoliberal policies, psychiatric and prison deinstitutionalization processes and changes related to drug use and availability. Perception and treatment of the homeless are based are based on the biased view that these individuals are unproductive citizens or even criminals. Research results show that, while homeless populations have generally increased across the globe, we observe specific traits related to social exclusion tendencies present for centuries at the local level in Belém.

Honoring Languages: Review of Creole Composition: Academic Writing in the Anglophone Caribbean

In traditional Caribbean villages, the bell crier made important announcements from street to street. People listened and carried the news further. Like the proverbial bell crier, Milson-Whyte, Oenbring, and Jaquette, along with fourteen contributors announced “We are here. And we doin’ dis—‘write [ing] our way in” to academic spaces (Creole Composition, 2019, p. x). Creole Composition provides current perspectives on post-secondary composition pedagogy, academic literacies, and research across multiple academic disciplines. Indeed, this intersectionality addresses Browne’s (2013) argument that Caribbean vernacular orientations and practices fly beneath the radar of the discipline of Rhetoric and Composition. Caribbean institutions of higher learning must embrace Caribbean students’ creole-influenced languages.

The Commodification of Public Spaces on Khao San Road

This study focuses on the mechanisms and institutions for the governance of public spaces on Khao San Road, Bangkok. Khao San is a small road famous for tourism. It is located near major attractions, and is full of budget accommodations and street vendors. This street is known among the locals and foreign tourists as one of Bangkok’s most vibrant and lively. Furthermore, Khao San offers immense opportunity for vendors, as it is crowded with tourists all day. This factor is of utmost importance to the success of businesses. Therefore, competitions for prime vending spots on the road have been going on for years. Under these circumstances, public spaces are transformed into private goods that can be traded, transferred and deprived in reality. With the qualitative method of grounded theory, this paper reveals the process of Khao San Road’s commodification as well as the mechanisms and institutions involved in the process. Qualitative data collected using three methods: non-participant observations, in-depth interviews, and document studies were triangulated and analysed. The findings suggest that both external and internal mechanisms have stimulated the commodification of public spaces on Khao San Road over the past decades. The external mechanisms are tourism and multinational capitalist economy. The internal mechanism relates to community norms on the de facto individual rights over public spaces. These mechanisms have developed unofficial rules to work at an operational level with official rules supervised by officials. A critical outcome of these mechanisms and rules is the determination of the right to access and use public spaces by various groups of stakeholders. In conclusion, the paper discusses the relationship between the commodification of public spaces and the inequality problem. Public spaces as private goods are not different from other private possessions that can be excluded through price, authority, and policy mechanisms. Collaboration between mechanisms has resulted in only a small number of people having the opportunity to indeed access and utilise the resources on the street. People whose opportunity is denied need to bring themselves into the patronage system to ensure the survival of their businesses.