Vagrancy and Homelessness in Global and Historical Perspective
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Beier.i-x 10/3/08 10:08 AM Page i Cast Out Beier.i-x 10/3/08 10:08 AM Page ii This series of publications on Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Global and C omparative Studies is d esigned to present significant re- search, translation, and opinion to area specialists and to a wide commu- nity of persons interested in world affairs. The editor seeks manuscripts of quality on any subject and can usually make a decision regarding publica- tion within three months of receipt of the original work. Production meth- ods generally permit a work to appear within one year of acceptance. The editor works closely with authors to produce a high-quality book. The se- ries appears in a paperback format and is distributed worldwide. For more information, contact the executive editor at Ohio University Press, Cir- cle Drive, The Ridges, Athens, Ohio . Executive editor: Gillian Berchowitz AREA CONSULTANTS Africa: Diane M. Ciekawy Latin America: Brad Jokisch, Patrick Barr-Melej, and Rafael Obregon Southeast Asia: William H. Frederick The Ohio University Research in International Studies series is published for the C enter for International Studies by Ohio U niversity Press. The views expressed in individual volumes are those of the authors and should not be considered to represent the policies or beliefs of the Center for In- ternational Studies, Ohio University Press, or Ohio University. Beier.i-x 10/3/08 10:08 AM Page iii Cast Out VAGRANCY AND HOMELESSNESS IN GLOBAL AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE Edited by A. L. Beier and Paul Ocobock Ohio University Research in International Studies Global and Comparative Studies Series No. Ohio University Press Athens Beier.i-x 10/3/08 10:08 AM Page iv © by the Center for International Studies Ohio University www.ohioswallow.com All rights reserved To obtain permission to quote, reprint, or otherwise reproduce or distribute material from Ohio University Press publications, please contact our rights and permissions department at () - or () - (fax). Printed in the United States of America The books in the Ohio University Research in International Studies Series are printed on acid-free paper ƒ ™ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cast out : vagrancy and homelessness in global and historical perspective / edited by A. L. Beier and Paul Ocobock. — st ed. p. cm. — (Ohio University research in international studies. Global and comparative studies series ; no. ) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN ---- (pbk. : alk. paper) . Homelessness. Vagrancy. Poverty. I. Beier, A. L. II. Ocobock, Paul R. (Paul Robert), – HV.C .—dc Beier.i-x 10/3/08 10:08 AM Page v Contents Acknowledgments ix Vagrancy and Homelessness in Global and Historical Perspective Paul Ocobock “A New Serfdom”: Labor Laws, Vagrancy Statutes, and Labor Discipline in England, – A. L. Beier The Neglected Soldier as Vagrant, Revenger, Tyrant Slayer in Early Modern England Linda Woodbridge “Takin’ It to the Streets”: Henry Mayhew and the Language of the Underclass in Mid-Nineteenth-Century London A. L. Beier Vagrant India: Famine, Poverty, and Welfare under Colonial Rule David Arnold Beier.i-x 10/3/08 10:08 AM Page vi Vagrancy in Mauritius and the Nineteenth-Century Colonial Plantation World Richard B. Allen Doing Favors for Street People: Official Responses to Beggars and Vagrants in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro Thomas H. Holloway Vagabondage and Siberia: Disciplinary Modernism in Tsarist Russia Andrew A. Gentes “Tramps in the Making”: The Troubling Itinerancy of America’s News Peddlers Vincent DiGirolamo Between Romance and Degradation: Navigating the Meanings of Vagrancy in North America, ‒ Frank Tobias Higbie The “Travelling Native”: Vagrancy and Colonial Control in British East Africa Andrew Burton and Paul Ocobock vi | Contents Beier.i-x 10/3/08 10:08 AM Page vii Thought Reform: The Chinese Communists and the Reeducation of Beijing’s Beggars, Vagrants, and Petty Thieves Aminda M. Smith Imposing Vagrancy Legislation in Contemporary Papua New Guinea Robert Gordon Subversive Accommodations: Doing Homeless in Tokyo’s Ueno Park Abby Margolis Select Bibliography Contributors Index Contents | vii Beier.i-x 10/3/08 10:08 AM Page viii Beier.i-x 10/3/08 10:08 AM Page ix Acknowledgments First and foremost we thank the H istory Department at Princeton University for hosting the conference from which many of these pa- pers were drawn. The conference was generously funded by the His- tory Department as w ell as the She lby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies and the P rinceton Institute for International and Regional Studies. For their support in meeting royalty costs for the book’s cover, we thank the Department of History and the College of Arts and Scie nces of Illinois State University and Ohio U niversity Press. We also extend our gratitude to the contributors of this vol- ume, who have been a pleasure to work with and have brought so many intriguing studies into a shared and sustained conversation. Fi- nally, thanks to Gillian Berchowitz and the editors of Ohio University Press for their constant patience and help. Beier.i-x 10/3/08 10:08 AM Page x Beier.1-34 10/3/08 10:14 AM Page 1 Introduction Vagrancy and Homelessness in Global and Historical Perspective Paul Ocobock , , , beggars, bums, mendicants, idlers, indigents, itinerants, the underclass, and the homeless—all these names and legal categories seek to describe poor, unemployed, and highly mobile people—people who form the focal point of this collection of essays. Vagrancy laws are unique; while most crimes are defined by actions, vagrancy laws make no sp ecific action or inaction illegal. Rather the laws are based on personal condition, state of being, and social and economic status.1 Individuals merely need to exhibit the characteristics or stereotypes of vagrants for authorities to make an arrest.2 Thus, vagrancy can mean and be many different things to many people, and therein lies its legal importance as a broad, overarching mechanism to control and punish a selective group of people. Yet what are these qualities that arouse the suspicion of police and transform people into vagrants? Through history, those so lab eled and arrested for vagrancy have often been poor, young, able-bodied, unemployed, rootless, and homeless.3 Yet it has been the seeming vol- untary unemployment and mobility of people for which vagrancy laws have been designed.4 In general, the primary aim of vagrancy laws has been to establish control over idle individuals who could labor but Beier.1-34 10/3/08 10:14 AM Page 2 choose not to and rootless, roofless persons seemingly unfettered by traditional domestic life and free to travel outside the surveillance of the state. Over time, particularly in the tw entieth century, vagrancy became a catchall category favored for a “procedural laxity” that al- lowed the state to convict a “motley assortment of human troubles” and circumvent “the rigidity imposed by real or imagined defects in criminal law and procedure.”5 As the geography and heterogeneity of punishable social ills increased, more and more fell under the classifi- cation of vagrancy. As a result, explaining what vagrancy means, who vagrants are, and why they attract the ire of the state, is fraught with difficulty. As this collection of essays attests, vagrants can be peasant farmers, lit- erate ex-soldiers, famine victims, former slaves, beggars, political agitators, newsboys, migrant laborers, street people, squatters, and in some cases, those the state and the upper classes feared had breached social norms. Yet, the complicated nature of vagrancy and its connec- tions to human labor, mobility, behavior, and status have made it a useful historical tool to scholars. Historians have used the concept of vagrancy to examine a vast array of processes, including the develop- ment and impact of the market economy, migration of labor, con- struction of modern states and imp erial structures, formation of subcultures among the poor, rapidity of urbanization, and responses to poverty through charity, welfare, or prosecution. Since the s, when the first historical work was conducted on vagrancy, the topic has remained divided by region and time period. Most histories of vagrancy have focused on European and American experiences from the medieval period to the twentieth century; after all vagrancy is a European invention. Even recent scholarship on vagrancy in Lat in America, Africa, and the Middle East has focused on periods in which European notions of poverty and vagrancy law have been adopted through the imposition or influence of European law. In many ways, this collection of essays cannot escap e the E uropean experience. However, over half the chapters focus on regions outside Europe, and in each instance the authors seek to explore the ways in which va- grancy diverged from its European counterpart once introduced to the wider world. Furthermore, the collection attempts to bridge some of | Paul Ocobock Beier.1-34 10/3/08 10:14 AM Page 3 the geographic, temporal, and disciplinary divides that have discour- aged a global history of vagrancy and homelessness. The purpose of juxtaposing these works is not to expose a uniformity of vagrancy’s form and function among nations and across centuries, but rather to explore the development of vagrancy (or lack thereof) as a common response to managing poverty, labor, and social norms, and how this strategy changed over time and adapted to regional peculiarities. The contributions in this collection straddle seven centuries, five continents, and several academic disciplines. They delve deeper into the struggle of societies to understand and alleviate chronic poverty, whether through private charity, criminalization, institutionalization, or compulsory labor. Some chapters illustrate the power of vagrancy laws as c oercive engines in punishme nt and e xploitation; others highlight the utter failure of vagrancy policies at the hands of human agency, state incapacity, and persistent personal charity.