Homelessness and Violence
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Homelessness and Violence: Freud, Fanon and Foucault and the shadow of the Afrikan sex worker Thesis presented for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Arts: Women and Gender Studies University of the Western Cape Eric Harper 2012 Supervisor: Professor Tamara Shefer University of the Western Cape i ii ABSTRACT In this thesis, I will argue that one of the ways to think about the concept of homelessness and its relationship to violence is to trace the concept as it emerges in key theoretical texts of critical intellectuals who find themselves both in and outside the Western homeland. In attempting to do so, I limit this thesis to three key theoretical articulations from which the concept of homelessness can be extracted: the works of Sigmund Freud, Franz Fanon and Michael Foucault. In bringing to bear the life and work of these individuals, the hope is to conceive of the relationship between violence and homelessness in new and unforeseen ways. I propose to bring an informed interdisciplinary and gender perspective to bear on the concept of homelessness. Accepting the supposition that the body can be seen as a site of homecoming, I explore the question of who owns the body. This exploration is undertaken through an examination of the advocacy slogan, ‘my body, my business’, and the placement of the Afrikan sex worker alongside Freud, Fanon and Foucault. The Afrikan sex worker in this work is a new feminist potentiality in much the same way that homelessness offers new postcolonial possibilities. While much of postcolonial criticism has centred on the problem of the colonized subject’s relation to the home, there has not yet been a sustained undertaking of the history and meaning of the concept of homelessness and, more importantly, its relationship to the experience of violence in the contemporary world. The history of homeless people tends to be recorded through surveillance and documentation by those institutions responsible for providing discipline, punishment, shelter and cure so as to ‘save’ and ‘rescue’ them. These responses, particularly when done systematically, can become frameworks that hold the homeless person ransom to a particular language game of ‘truth’, thereby restricting the homeless person’s movement and possibility of finding a voice. Deriving a concept of homelessness from the life and work of Freud, Fanon and Foucault allows for new insights. These thinkers offer a view of homelessness that is productive for thinking against the grain of dominant orthodoxies. This contrasts with the implication of iii pathologization of homelessness which arises in the frameworks of dominant political, therapeutic and social work approaches. The creation of homelessness also recalls the attendant violence of its experience. I argue that the space of homelessness needs to be contextualized. When homelessness is imposed, as with torture or a tsunami, there is a closing down of space; but when chosen, as with the transgendered sex worker who leaves her home and community due to threats, impositions and judgements, homelessness may paradoxically open up space. Drawing on the insights from these theorists, I also suggest that the concept of homelessness may at a symbolic level serve rather as a powerful space of resistance to hegemonic practices of belonging, offering a way of destabilising dominant patriarchal, heteronormative and Western constructions of home. The thesis concludes that homelessness cannot be kept outside the boundaries of the home; and neither can the homeless be fully assimilated into the homeland, as something within the home is irreducible to any ordering of things. The border, boundary and intersections of home and homelessness are blurred, forever incomplete, as the home finds itself ceaselessly stained and crossed with the uncanny, that is, the ‘unhomely’. Home, as noted by Delia Vekony (2010), is a site of hospitality. It is a space to think, play, and dream, eat, make love and raise children. But it is also a stage upon which the state apparatus, global economy, monotheistic religions and patriarchal order assert control over the body. Homelessness has been constructed as a material experience for many: a site of terror, abandonment and lack of direction. It is often experience it as free falling or as the mental foreclosure of space. Yet I underline another dimension of homelessness: as an experience of liberation. This ‘camping on the borders’ allows for a disruption of identification, a state of refuge from the demands of others and a form of nomadic thinking. Within any home setting lurks the uncanny, what cannot be housed, likewise within any homeless setting a becoming-at-home is possible. Both home and homelessness hold the possibility of terror as well as a comforting, exciting retreat and escape. iv KEY WORDS Home, homeless, Freud, Fanon, Foucault, alienation, atypical citizen, fugue, bad habits, space, urbanization, uncanny, gender, sexuality, sex worker, marginalized and body. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis is dedicated to Louise Harper, Richard Klein, Njoki Mwaniki, Delia Vekony and Sharron Chadambura, Warren Harper, my father and my friends. To my mother, Louise: you showed me what it means to be loved and cared for by another. Your world is so simple yet so profound and wise: you have not lost touch with that humanity, the animal kingdom and magic gardens that gets destroyed by our overly rationalised existences. Through your kindness, I have witnessed the thoughtful embrace of difference and engagement with those deemed less than worthy. Richard, you are my teacher, supervisor and buddy. It has been a treat to dance to the rhythm of your brilliance, and a gift to bounce thoughts with you and to weave them into this story. Njoki, you are my dearest friend, a fellow Afrikan, a great love of mine and a life companion who I deeply respect. Your observations are of immense value to me. Your friendship means I am not alone. Delia, your friendship, our connection, the love and thinking we share is an endless gift. I deeply respect your interesting and ethical engagement in the world. Sharron, so beautiful, so strong, you are the mother to that beautiful future, passion and treasure that I hold dear. I am thankful in having you as part of my life and the guidance you bring me. Warren, my brother, who stood by mom when she needed somebody most and I was far away, well done! To my father, a hugely complex man who with whom I experienced a deep closeness, it is special when you are in my dreams and I can be ageless in those moments and we can play chess once again. To my friends, the Empress Gordon Isaacs, Nicky Swartz, Comrade Patrick Ntsime, Chris Oakley, John Lazarus, Jackie Nakazibwe, Jill Sloan, Anna Kowalska, Robert Thorpe, Nu Mohamed, Betty Kathure, Lola Vollen, Lena Zatsiva, Silvio Rech, Guy De Lancey, Dijana Rizvanovic, Myrna Ann Adkins, Mapaseka Vryman, Trevor Lubbe, Damien McKenna and Steven Peers: I love and feel deeply privileged to have you as part of my life. You have provided me with encouragement, ideas, support, understanding and space to feel alive during this long process. Thanks to those who made this work possible, Tamara Shefer and Jill Sloan. Thanks to my supervisor, Tamara Shefer. You believed in this work, even when it felt like it had come to vi grinding halt, you showed patience and in an enduring and tolerant way lead me to the end during those moments I had given up, without you helping this project would have remained unfinished. Jill, you kindly continued to edit and make my dyslectic function during the week of torment when it looked like we would never meet the deadline. You gave so much and stood by me, as you always have. Thanks to Asha Mohamud (UNFPA), Denise Parmentier (Oxfam Novib), Eka Williams (Ford Foundation) and Juanita Arendse (Department of Health), four donors who truly care and make a difference. A special acknowledgment and thanks to those individuals who challenged me to think through sharing their particular intimate details, suffering and their resilience and desire to move beyond the pain, as well as to those who worked alongside me. It was as a result of wonderful team work and supportive management that we were able to reach out, pioneer and implement cutting-edge interventions. I need to acknowledge and mention the following: St. Michaels Children’s Home (Vivien Lewis and Peter Harper); Oranjia Jewish Children’s Home (Claire du Vaal, Ann Barnds, Mark Tomlinson); GASA 6010 (John Pegge, Gordon Isaacs); Red Admiral Project (John O’Reilly); Just Ask Counselling Service for the Homeless (Jo Parvey, Michelle Julian, Marsha Lebon, Wendy Thomas, Debbie, Arthur, Lee, Phillip Boxer, Allan Rowan and a special acknowledgment of Davina Liley and Pip Bevan for their bold leadership making the project possible; the Trauma Centre for Survivors of Violence and Torture staff and volunteers (Monwabisi, Brain Mpahelala, Lars Buur, Christopher Colvin, Gordon Isaacs, Jill Sloan, Potiphar, Molefi, Nomfuzo, Maria Stacey, Donald Skinner, Michael Lapsley, Nokuthula Shabalala and a special acknowledgment of Nomfundo Walaza and Shirley Gunn their bold leadership and courage); Rocky Mountain Survivors Centre (Paul Stein, Amber Gray); Spring Institute for International Cross-Cultural Studies (Muna and Myrna Ann Adkins); Arlington House (Tony Graham, Jessica Granville, Steve O’Toole, Jeremy Moss, Michael Culshaw, Mary, Chad Burge); Spectrum Day Centre (Father Nicolas, Juliet Spencer-Walters); Park House (Mary and Emma); the staff and volunteers