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The Legacies of Vagrancy Law in Contemporary Homelessness Regulation: a Global Historical and Ethnographic Examination of Tokyo, Japan and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

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The Legacies of Vagrancy Law in Contemporary Homelessness Regulation: a Global Historical and Ethnographic Examination of Tokyo, Japan and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Florida International University FIU Digital Commons FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School 7-2-2020 The Legacies of Vagrancy Law in Contemporary Homelessness Regulation: A Global Historical and Ethnographic Examination of Tokyo, Japan and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Rayna Marlene Rusenko Florida International University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd Part of the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Rusenko, Rayna Marlene, "The Legacies of Vagrancy Law in Contemporary Homelessness Regulation: A Global Historical and Ethnographic Examination of Tokyo, Japan and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia" (2020). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 4474. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/4474 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the University Graduate School at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Miami, Florida THE LEGACIES OF VAGRANCY LAW IN CONTEMPORARY HOMELESSNESS REGULATION: A GLOBAL HISTORICAL AND ETHNOGRAPHIC EXAMINATION OF TOKYO, JAPAN AND KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in GLOBAL AND SOCIOCULTURAL STUDIES by Rayna Marlene Rusenko 2020 To: Dean John F. Stack, Jr. Green School of International and Public Affairs This dissertation, written by Rayna Marlene Rusenko, and entitled The Legacies of Vagrancy Law in Contemporary Homelessness Regulation: A Global Historical and Ethnographic Examination of Tokyo, Japan and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, having been approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment. We have read this dissertation and recommend that it be approved. _______________________________________ Percy Hintzen _______________________________________ Vrushali Patil _______________________________________ Amy Bliss Marshell _______________________________________ Matthew D Marr, Major Professor Date of Defense: July 2, 2020 The dissertation of Rayna Marlene Rusenko is approved. _______________________________________ Dean John F. Stack, Jr. Green School of International and Public Affairs _______________________________________ Andrés G. Gil Vice President for Research and Economic Development and Dean of the University Graduate School Florida International University, 2020 ii © Copyright 2020 by Rayna Marlene Rusenko All rights reserved. iii DEDICATION To everyone who shared their time and kindness. To everyone needing more tolerant space. iv ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION THE LEGACIES OF VAGRANCY LAW IN CONTEMPORARY HOMELESSNESS REGULATION: A GLOBAL HISTORICAL AND ETHNOGRAPHIC EXAMINATION OF TOKYO, JAPAN AND KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA by Rayna Marlene Rusenko Florida International University, 2020 Miami, Florida Professor Matthew D Marr, Major Professor This dissertation illustrates how contemporary policy responses to homelessness in Tokyo, Japan and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia have tapped into historically-entrenched policy ideas and institutions and been shaped by varied experiences with transnational policy networks from the mid-19th century. Using archival and ethnographic methods, I trace practices and policies pertaining to homelessness management while underscoring the unique yet globally-connected nature of local policy variations and impacts, including street-level experiences. I take a distinctly broad view of homelessness regulation to consider the criminal justice, welfare, and urban development policies that authorize street-level interventions by government and non-government actors. By focusing on Asian cities of varied developmental statuses, this research contributes to knowledge of —and reckoning with—the legacies of imperial and colonial politico-legal cultures in neoliberal governance beyond Euro-American contexts. v This dissertation reveals the locally-situated ways in which homelessness has been (re)constructed across time and space as a problem of social and spatial disorder, ostensibly threatening spiritual and material modernity, defined differently across (post)colonial and (post)imperial contexts. This policy re/construction upholds what I identify as the legacy of vagrancy law: a delegitimization of homelessness across multiple policy fields, rendering it grounds for criminalization, eviction, public assistance disqualification, and political disenfranchisement. In highlighting street-level effects, the dissertation underscores how policy innovations across time, including welfarist approaches, incorporate terms constraining rights and socio-spatial mobility justified under legal frameworks classifying homelessness as an illegitimate and, hence, unprotected state of existence. I argue that truly democratic, humane solutions would require full legalization and public recognition of homelessness as not an aberration but an unexceptional variation in modern distributions of wealth and power. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1 Background ..........................................................................................................................1 Statement of Problem and Methods .....................................................................................3 The Constitution of Homelessness Regulation ....................................................................7 Policy ideas and institutions .............................................................................................7 Neoliberal imperatives of social and spatial order ...........................................................9 Supportive, ambivalent, and punitive policy—versus freedom? ...................................14 Modern spatial and social development—and imperatives of order ..............................17 Global history, compassionate acts, and power ..........................................................19 Homelessness Today and Related Policy Regimes ...........................................................27 Narrative Outline of the Dissertation .................................................................................35 Value of Research – Legacies and Democracy ..................................................................37 CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW AND METHODOLOGY .................................38 Social and Spatial Order in Global History .......................................................................38 The Role of Social Science ................................................................................................40 The Neoliberal Present .......................................................................................................44 Methods..............................................................................................................................47 Research objectives ........................................................................................................49 Research design and methods ........................................................................................50 Analysis ..........................................................................................................................54 The Roots of Policy ...........................................................................................................56 Difference .......................................................................................................................56 Liberalism.......................................................................................................................64 Police and the maintenance of order ..............................................................................65 Welfare and social control..............................................................................................69 Lawfare: Law and coercion ............................................................................................71 Discrimination, discretion, and homo sacer ...................................................................75 CHAPTER 2. IMPERATIVES OF CARE AND CONTROL ..........................................81 Introduction ........................................................................................................................81 Homelessness Regulation, Policy Mobilities, and the Neoliberal Punitive Turn ..............83 Historicizing Homelessness Regulation ............................................................................87 City Strategies and Policy Re/Formation in KL ................................................................89 1870s-1900s: Introducing vagrancy law ........................................................................89 1910s-1930s: Refuge and repatriation............................................................................92 1940s-1960s: Preserving public order through compulsory care ...................................94 1970s-1980s: Policing as social welfare services ..........................................................96 1990s-2016: Criminalization as care ..............................................................................99 The Trajectory of Vagrancy Law .....................................................................................102
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