Homeless Youth on the Road and in the Streets

• The anthropology of deviance

• “sub-cultures”

• Urban anthropology

• The anthropology of space and place

The Anthropology of Deviance

Deviance

• Modes of action which do not conform to the norms or values held by most of the members of a group or society.

• What is regarded as 'deviant' is as widely variable as the norms and values that distinguish different cultures and subcultures from one another.

• Many forms of behaviour which are highly esteemed in one context, or by one group, are regarded negatively by others.

Deviance and Conformity

• Social constructions

• idealized conduct is most clearly seen in marginalized people

• deviance forces them into "discredited" or "discreditable" groups, based on the nature of their stigma

• deviance & the existence of a stigma

Stigma

• "mark of infamy or disgrace; sign of moral blemish; stain or reproach caused by dishonorable conduct; reproachful characterization" (Webster, 1913)

• Social stigma– social disapproval of personal characteristics

or beliefs that are against cultural norms– social stigma often leads to marginalization

Normality/abnormality

• Multi-dimensional concepts– Represents a range of possible perceptions

• Of what is normal and not normal• Whether it is controlled or not by the norms of

society

• Times & places people can behave in an abnormal way

• Most cultures disapprove of forms of public behavior that are obviously not being controlled

Zones of social behavior

Zones of social behavior

• Not static, fluid categories, spectrum of possibilities– Change with time & circumstance– Normal in one group – abnormal in another

• Controlled normality (A)

• Uncontrolled normality (D)

• Controlled abnormality (B)

• Uncontrolled abnormality (C)

Zones of social behavior

• A, D, B – it is assumed that the individual is at least aware of what the social norms are– Whether they conform or not

• Substance use– Traversing the categories of “bad” and “mad”– Criminal & Intoxication– Temporary madness

Which Group?

• Modes of action which do not conform to the norms or values held by most of the members of a group or society

• Deviance, stigma, zones of social behavior

• Reminder: What is regarded as 'deviant' is as widely variable as the norms and values that distinguish different cultures and subcultures from one another.

“sub-cultures”

• In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a set of people with distinct sets of behavior and beliefs that differentiate them from a larger culture of which they are a part.

• The subculture may be distinctive because of the age of its members, or by their race, ethnicity, class and/or gender

• the qualities that determine a subculture as distinct may be aesthetic, religious, occupational, political, sexual or a combination of these factors

Sub-cultures

• Versus “community”• Sub-cultures have come to designate social

groups which are perceived to deviate from the normative ideals of some community

• Small-scale association of people united by a common interest

• Sub = “beneath” or “within”• Variance from a larger normal, average,

dominant collectivity– Consciousness of otherness or difference

Sub-cultures & difference

• Difference defined in contrast to existing norms

• As opposing category – embraces those norms in the process of differentiation

• Social & cultural reproduction• Mimesis & alterity• Hegemony -- the dominance of one group

over other groups, with or without the threat of force

Hegemony & Cultural Control

• Cultural perspectives become skewed to favor the dominant group.

• The cultural control that hegemony asserts affects commonplace patterns of thought

• Hegemony controls the way new ideas are rejected or become naturalized in a process that subtly alters notions of common sense in a given society.

Cultural hegemony

• Cultural hegemony is a concept coined by Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci.

• a diverse culture can be ruled or dominated by one group or class, that everyday practices and shared beliefs provide the foundation for complex systems of domination.– What’s bad, mad, normal, deviant, etc.

Urban Anthropology

• The urban – spatially dense, heterogeneous population– Heterogeneity & “sub-cultures”

• Anthropology & ethnography applied to the study of urban phenomena

• the causes, processes and consequences of urban migration and urbanization

• cross-cultural similarities and variations in urban ways of life• how people negotiate urban life as a particular sociocultural

world• rural-urban influences, neighborhoods, ethnicities,

subcultures, social networks and stratification to understand how social relations are constructed and how cultural knowledge is distributed in cities

Conceptual Approaches

• ecology models

• community, family, and network analyses

• studies of power/knowledge of planning and architecture

• supralocal/local linkage analyses

• political economic, representational, and discursive models of the city

City(s)

• The ethnic city - mosaic of enclaves• The divided city – hidden barriers of race & class• The gendered city – a male preserve• The contested city -- attention to ‘spatialising’ of

culture• The de-industrialized city• The global city• The informational city• The modernist & post-modernist city• The sacred city• The fortress city

Urbanity

• “The processes of segregation establish moral distances which make the city a mosaic little worlds which touch but do not interpenetrate.

• This make it possible for individuals to pass quickly and easily from one moral milieu to another, and encourages the fascinating but dangerous experiment of living at the same time in several different contiguous, but otherwise widely separated worlds” (Park 1952:47)

dominant research trends in urban anthropology

• Post-structural studies of race, class and gender in urban context– Structure & agency

• political economic studies of transnational culture

• studies of the symbolic and social production of urban space and planning

Space & Place• Place and space -- central constructs within

geography, archaeology, architecture and landscape architecture.

• emphasized spatial thinking, visualization, and the use of non-linear and conceptual modes of representation (maping, drawing, and model building).

• other academic disciplines rarely studied space and place.

• architectural design, settlement layout, or the visual character of a region as the “setting”

• spatial patterns, the meanings that groups and individuals attach to landscape and built environment, and spatial modes of problem solving usually not considered

The anthropology of space & place

• Built environments• place is a space to which meaning has

been inscribed– space as an abstract, universal, non-cultural

phenomenon

• we only have place: experienced, practiced, local

• Built world and geographies as systems of signs and symbols– a language of signification

two different approaches to space/place

• one that emphasizes the experiential, situational, sensual, contingent aspects of space

• the other emphasizes the brute force of power, the structural, and the continuity of structuring principles of built environments

Re-Thinking GEOGRAPHIES OF IDENTITY

• Spatial-cultural habits of mind, body, • immutable link between cultures, peoples,

and identities & specific places• notion of culture based on the

inseparability of identity from place– Deterritorialization– Diasporic public spheres -- part of the cultural

dynamic of urban life in most countries– migration and mass mediation

GEOGRAPHIES OF IDENTITY: PUBLIC & PRIVATE/DOMESTIC

SPHERES/PLACES

• opposition between domestic (reproduction), private, & public (production) provides the basis of a framework to identify and explore place

• Domestic/private: public sphere clearly drawn in societies where division of labor encompasses more than age & sex differentiation

• mobility not just through geographic space but social space (associations)