“Home Is Wherever I Go”

“Home is wherever I go” Rethinking Home and Publicness from the Perspectives of Unhoused People in Bern Leandra Maria Choffat “Home is wherever I go”: Rethinking Home and Publicness from the Per- spectives of Unhoused People in Bern A Master Thesis written by Leandra Maria Choffat Matr. Nr.: 14-053-607 Supervised by: Dr. Laura Nkula-Wenz Department of Urban Studies Master of Arts in Critical Urbanisms Submitted on November 12, 2020 Cover Photo: Taken by Raphael, A Person walking in Public Space Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to Mischu, Beat, Nadine, and Raphael. I sincerely appreciate your contributions and the insights you granted me into your lifeworlds. This thesis would not have been possible without your honesty, patience, and effort. In addition, I thank the Streetwork Bern (Kirchliche Gassenarbeit Bern) for their support and for not giving up on my project during these difficult times. To Laura Nkula-Wenz, my supervisor, I am very thankful for her ever constructive feed- back, her positivity, and her guidance throughout this process. I thank Sophie Old- field for deeply engaging with the results of this thesis. Last but not least I thank my dear friends and my wonderful family for their limitless support. Nuria for giving me invaluable input on how to critically engage with my data. Louisa and Mats for their moral support and showing an interest in all of my insights and ideas. Contents Introduction 2 1. Home, Publicness, and the Criminalization of Public Subjects 4 1.1 From Homeless to Houseless to Unhoused 5 1.2 Notions of Home 8 1.3 Public Space 11 1.4 Criminalization of Public Space 12 1.5 Criminalization of Public Subjects 13 1.6 Inclusion as Exclusion in Public Space 14 2. Contextualizing Unhousedness in Bern, Switzerland 16 2.1 Hidden Forms and Figures of Unhousedness 16 2.2 Bern’s Housing Market 18 2.3 Exemplifying Regulation and Creation of Public Space in Bern 19 2.4 Local Struggles in a Pandemic 23 3. The Research Process 25 3.1 Participation and its Limitations 25 3.2 Reflexive Photographs as Valid Data 26 3.3 Getting to Know the Research Participants 28 3.4 Elicit Conversation Through Photographs 28 3.5 Transcription, Coding, and Composing Narratives 29 3.6 Situating my own Positionalities 31 4. Narratives 33 4.1 Mischu 34 4.2 Beat 41 4.3 Nadine 47 4.4 Raphael 53 5. Analysis 58 5.1 Diverse Notions of Home 58 5.2 Having Private Sphere in Public 60 5.3 Evaluating the Swiss Housing Market and Social Services 62 5.4 Navigating the Lockdown 65 5.5 Defamiliarizing the Familiar 66 Conclusion 68 Bibliography 70 List of Figures 70 Conversations 70 Literature 71 Appendix 77 Interview Guideline 77 Declarations of Consent 79 Institutions in Bern with English Translation or Description Kirchliche Gassenarbeit Bern Streetwork Bern Verbatim Translation: Ecclesiastical Street- work Bern. Commonly referred to as Street- work Bern by participants. Therefore, throughout this thesis, this organization is also referred to as Streetwork Bern. Their re- lationship to the church is briefly explained in Chapter 3.1. Direktion für Tiefbau, Verkehr und Stadtgrün (TVS) Directorate of Civil Engineering, Traffic, and Green Urban Spaces Division of the city administration in Bern Wohn- und Obdachlosenhilfe Assistance for Unhoused People Division of the Social Services Department Bern PINTO (Prävention, Integration und Toleranz) PINTO (Prevention, Intervention, and Tol- erance) Division of the Directorate for Education, So- cial Issues and Sports Heiliggeistkirche Bern Holy Ghost Church Bern Church close to main train station of Bern Kompetenzzentrum öffentlicher Raum KORA Center of Competence for Public Space Responsibility of the Civil Engineering De- partment Bern, management consists of ac- tors from TVS Emergency Shelters: Sleeper Bern Passantenheim Bern Institutions for Addiction and/or Housing Assistance: CONTACT Klinik Südhang WEGE Weierbühl Azzurro KODA Introduction To me, home is sitting at the dinner table with my loud and very lovable family, conversations and hugs from my friends, the warm atmosphere of my old but cozy apartment, the city of Bern with all its familiar places, and the many new things I have yet to discover. Home to me is love, relationships, trust, and the familiar physical structures surrounding me. Even though home is a concept without a universal definition, it is arguably one of the most significant expressions of place. The notion of home is relevant to almost every human being. Each individual’s experiences of the various notions of home have the potential to either confirm or deny one’s “fundamental sense of belonging in the world” (Springer 2017, 102). Notions of home are diverse and can express themselves in manifold ways. So, how is it possible that a large number of people in the contemporary world are designated as homeless: as not having a home? This thesis therefore starts with the question, what does home mean to unhoused people in Bern? In order to address this question, I had conversations with four people who all have a rather complex background regarding their housing history and name public space as part of their home. Through this, a multitude of questions about the terminology and definition of homeless, the notions of home, public spaces, and participation unfolded. In order to put forth a deeper understanding of the various forms and definitions of unhousedness, a critique of the adequacy of the term ‘homeless’ is presented in Chapter 1. Following this, the definition from the European Typology of Homelessness (ETHOS) and Sabine Springer’s redefinition of the term are incorporated to make an enhanced definition of unhousedness. To legitimize my claim of the term ‘homeless’ being somewhat of a misnomer, what follows is an in-depth elaboration on the various notions of home. This is an attempt to answer the question, how can the term ‘home’ be re- conceptualized in order to do justice to the diversity of lived experiences? It is an approach meant to go beyond the concept of the built structures of a house or an apartment as the only form of an expression of home. On the contrary, home does not simply exist but is constantly made and recon- structed (Blunt and Dowling 2006, 23). According to Mallett (2004), the term ‘home’ functions as a source of complex and interacting ideas about people’s relationships with one another and different places, spaces, things, and emotions (84). The most striking commonality of the four research participants, apart from the multiplicity that informs their notions of home, is that they all named public space as one place that they consider their home. So, in the second part of Chapter 1 I expound on various contemplations of what the publicness of public space consists of. How do people who name these spaces as a second home feel perceived within them and by whom? What would need to change for them to fully be a part of these spaces? When taking a closer look at public space in general, it becomes evident that it is always situated and lived, meaning every public space has its own rhythms of use and regulations (Qian 2020, 81). One of the techniques of regulating public space is closely examined, as it was frequently mentioned by the interviewees. It is the state’s technique of criminalizing spaces and therefore a connotation of the subjects within it as criminal and disorderly. Nowadays, the formulation of such regulations often does not denominate and exclude certain groups or individuals directly. According to Qian, these regulations are often formulated as inclusive and participatory to achieve a subtle mobilization of exclusion (87). On a more practical note, Chapter 2 provides a survey of the small amount of available data on the topic of unhousedness in Switzerland. Key numbers like the median income, the unemployment rate, 2 and some key figures concerning the housing market in Switzerland and the city of Bern are presented and examined. To exemplify the theoretical approaches made in Chapter 1.5 and 1.6, the norm of expulsion (Wegweisungsnorm) exercised in the city of Bern is discussed. What follows is an analysis of how public space is perceived and conceptualized on a policy level within this particular Swiss city. On account of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic1, there is a brief analysis of Bern’s local news- papers and their reports on unhousedness during the Swiss-wide lockdown from March 16 until May 11, 2020. In Chapter 3, a detailed description of the research process is given. Firstly, the possibilities and limitations of a participatory research process and the applied methods of photo voice or reflexive photography and photo elicitation interviews (PEI) are examined. Then, a recounting of the process of transcribing, coding, and reformulating the transcripts as narratives is presented. As the thesis included some very sensitive themes and methods, I reflect on my own positionality within this process. To anchor this work in the lived experiences and the points of views of the research participants, the narratives serve as the centerpiece of this thesis. Each narrative tells the story of what the participants told me about their lives. The red thread that runs through all of these narratives is the expression of what home means to them. Along the way, a variety of themes and anecdotes relevant to the dis- cussion about publicness, the state system, and social justice are elucidated. In the analysis following the narratives, Chapter 5 outlines some of the key themes of the preceding theoretical debates that are closely interwoven with the accounts of the research participants. The point of view of Nora, one of the managers of the Kirchliche Gassenarbeit Bern (Ecclesiastical Street- work Bern), adds some valuable insights to support these final thoughts.

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