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Burns, Andrew Patrick (2020) Journeys Through Homelessness: an Ethnographic Investigation Into the Lived Experiences of Homelessness in Glasgow

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Burns, Andrew Patrick (2020) Journeys Through Homelessness: an Ethnographic Investigation Into the Lived Experiences of Homelessness in Glasgow Burns, Andrew Patrick (2020) Journeys through homelessness: an ethnographic investigation into the lived experiences of homelessness in Glasgow. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/81869/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Journeys through homelessness: an ethnographic investigation into the lived experiences of homelessness in Glasgow Andrew Patrick Burns BSc(hons) MSc Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Social and Political Sciences College of Social Sciences University of Glasgow March 2020 ii Abstract This thesis investigates the lived experience of homelessness in Glasgow, Scotland. Since Scottish devolution in 1999, homeless legislation and policy in Scotland has diverged in important ways from the rest of the UK while, over the same period, the local authority in Glasgow has implemented major homelessness and housing policies. Resources, in homeless and other welfare and social support services, have also been under pressure from a decade of austerity in the UK. This creates a unique legislative, policy, and service-design context in the city with implications for how homelessness is experienced there. In order to understand the lived experience of homelessness, the thesis draws on the mobilities literature including the concepts of flow and journey. Both journeys and experience are things that have to be passed through and, therefore, journeys provide an analytical lens through which lived experience can be viewed. The thesis is based on eight months of ethnographic fieldwork between November 2017 and June 2018. Relying principally on participant observation, the researcher focussed on the spatial and conceptual journeys of homeless individuals, and those that support them, in order to uncover the complex and dynamic relationships in which homelessness is experienced. This thesis reveals the ways in which homelessness constitutes an experience of extreme precarity. While precarity in homelessness is not a new or ground- breaking observation, by looking at the journeys of homeless individuals, this thesis shines a light on the all-encompassing and relentless nature of that precarity and how it is experienced in variegated ways. It argues that precarity, freedom, and deservingness exist in complex and reciprocal relationships with each other, mediated by the distribution of power in this field. It shows the impact of these relationships on the lived experience of individuals including on their trajectories through their homeless journey, the knowledge and skills that they build, the actions and interventions that they are subject to, and how they are evaluated by themselves and others Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................. ii List of Figures ......................................................................................... vi Acknowledgements................................................................................... vii Author’s Declaration ................................................................................ viii Definitions/Abbreviations ........................................................................... ix Introduction........................................................................... 10 1.1 Are you going to do a PhD or what? .................................................... 10 1.2 Why Glasgow? .............................................................................. 12 1.3 Aims and questions ........................................................................ 13 1.4 Original Contribution ..................................................................... 15 1.5 Outline of the thesis ...................................................................... 16 Calculated homelessness? .......................................................... 20 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................ 20 2.2 Defining homelessness .................................................................... 21 2.3 Counting homelessness ................................................................... 27 2.4 Accounting for homelessness ............................................................ 32 2.5 Recounting homelessness ................................................................ 36 2.6 Conclusion .................................................................................. 44 Conceptual framework .............................................................. 46 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................ 46 3.2 Lived experience .......................................................................... 46 3.3 Mobilities: flows and journeys .......................................................... 49 3.3.1 Turning towards mobility ........................................................... 50 3.3.2 Flow .................................................................................... 52 3.3.3 Journeys don’t flow ................................................................. 54 3.3.4 The making of people… and places ............................................... 55 3.3.5 Homeless mobilities ................................................................. 57 3.3.6 Imagining movement ................................................................ 60 3.3.7 Operationalising mobilities ......................................................... 63 3.4 Field, capital, and habitus ............................................................... 67 3.5 Precarity and freedom ................................................................... 71 3.6 Conclusion .................................................................................. 74 Ways of working - methods ........................................................ 76 4.1 Introduction ................................................................................ 76 4.2 A field within a field beside a field .................................................... 78 iv 4.3 Field positions ............................................................................. 80 4.4 At home with homelessness? ............................................................ 81 4.5 ‘What are you again Drew?’ ............................................................. 83 4.6 Participants ................................................................................ 92 4.7 Intentionality meets reality – methods of data collection ......................... 98 4.8 Recording, writing and analysis ....................................................... 104 4.9 Ethical considerations .................................................................. 105 4.10 Exiting the field ....................................................................... 109 4.11 Conclusion ............................................................................. 110 A field day: dimensions and dynamics ......................................... 112 5.1 Introduction .............................................................................. 112 5.2 A walk through a multi-dimensional field ........................................... 114 5.3 A brief history and context of homelessness in Glasgow ......................... 123 5.4 Field dynamics – institutions and actors ............................................. 129 5.4.1 The local authority ................................................................ 129 5.4.2 Emergency shelter ................................................................. 134 5.4.3 Short-term residential services .................................................. 137 5.4.4 Day services......................................................................... 144 5.5 Conclusion ................................................................................ 146 Homeless journeys back and forth .............................................. 149 6.1 Introduction .............................................................................. 149 6.2 ‘Where it all started’ ................................................................... 150 6.3 ‘One bad decision’ ...................................................................... 157 6.4 Wait…wait…go! .......................................................................... 165 6.5 Routes to roots .......................................................................... 169 6.6 Conclusion ................................................................................ 173 Flow, friction and freedom ...................................................... 175 7.1 Introduction .............................................................................. 175 7.2 Stuckness - waiting, hope, and (im)mobility ....................................... 176 7.3 Being stuck or being free in homelessness .........................................
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