Swept Up Lives?: Re-envisioning the Homeless City (RGS-IBG Book Series) - Softcover

Cloke, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1405153873 ISBN 13: 9781405153874

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010

Synopsis

Utilizing innovative ethnographic research, Swept-Up Lives? challenges conventional accounts of urban homelessness to trace the complex and varied attempts that have been instituted to care for homeless people.

About this title

Review:

"Overall, this book makes a substantial contribution to research on urban homelessness. It provides a glimpse into a network of emotions relationships, and service provision that is underacknowledged in urban geography." (The Canadian Geographer, 4 September 2014)

"Swept up Lives? lives up toexpectations and delivers a well argued and insightful analysis that progresses established paradigmatic ways of understanding homelessness in the Western world." (UGRG Book Review Series, 19 December 2011)

"I cannot praise this book highly enough or hope to do justice to it in a short review. It is a considerable and possibly unprecedented achievement . . . I would recommend that this book be read by everyone who has anything to do with homelessness, and by every policy work, every politician, and every academic analyst of the policy process." (The Geographical Journal, 2011)

"A compelling narrative, moving from 'the street' to structure and back again, to argue that more attention needs to be paid to the neoliberalist welfare state. The authors highlight examples of hope and caring, providing a critical but optimistic view of what can be done by individuals, institutions, and governing bodies. A must read for researchers and students interested in understanding not only homelessness, but also the complexities of governance.'
--Lois M. Takahashi, University of California, Los Angeles

'Challenging theories of urban revanchism that deny homeless people agency and neglect the complexities of today's welfare state, Swept Up Lives provides a sharp conceptual corrective and rich portrayal of geographies of homelessness in Britain. Detailed ethnographies and institutional analysis offer a window on homeless subjectivities and voluntary organizations as spaces of caring and active citizenship. I highly recommend this book.'
--Jennifer Wolch, University of California, Berkeley

'A well crafted, insightful and timely book that overturns existing orthodoxies, exploring the experience of homelessness in the UK and providing a thought-provoking portrayal of the human face of homelessness.'
--Christine Milligan, Lancaster University

From the Back Cover:

Swept Up Lives? challenges conventional accounts of urban homelessness. Moving beyond more familiar narratives concerning the recent 'purification' of public space and attempts to sweep homeless people from the streets, it focuses instead upon the many and complex attempts to care for homeless people in the contemporary city. Drawing upon in-depth ethnographic research with organisations providing homeless night shelters, hostels, day centres, and soup runs - and with the users of these services - the authors emphasize the relationships of care embodied and performed within homeless service spaces. Positioning these attempts to care for homeless people within a broader rapprochement between secular and faith-based ethical motivations, it draws attention to the emergence of a post-secular ethics that runs counter to, and sometimes actively resists, the vicissitudes of neoliberal welfare restructuring and a 'revanchist' (or vengeful) urban politics. The book thus argues for a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which homelessness is governed, paving the way for a characterisation of homelessness that pays greater attention to the agency of homeless people themselves and the complexity of homeless geographies - geographies within which homeless people experience a range of relationships that include compassion and care as well as regulation, containment and control.

Swept Up Lives? Re-envisioning the Homeless City offers innovative research and a visionary new approach to shape our understanding of the complexities of urban homelessness.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1405153873
• ISBN 13: 9781405153874
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304