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Agency,
Structure and Biography: Charting Transitions Through Homelessness in Late
Modernity
SAGE Publications, Inc.200610.1191/0967550706ab043oa
CarolMcNaughton
University of Glasgow, UK, c.mcnaughton.1@research.gla.ac.uk
Address
for correspondence: Carol McNaughton, Department of Urban Studies, University
of Glasgow, 25–29 Bute Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RS, UK; Email: c.mcnaughton.1@research.gla.ac.uk
This paper presents research
that qualitatively and longitudinally charted the life course of 28 individuals,
all experiencing homelessness or housing problems during the initial stage
of data collection. The paper frames the exploration of the participants'
biographies within theoretical perspectives that claim there is increased
individualization, choice and risk, in late modernity, and examines how these
claims may impact on the narratives that research respondents present of
their lives. Although individual action and family background were identified
as key influences on the participant's transitions through homelessness,
it is argued that this may actually illustrate how the concept of individualization
obscures the structural underpinnings that can still denote the chance people
have to negotiate with insecurity and risks such as homelessness. The paper
concludes by highlighting how the continued use of biographical research
in this way is crucial if knowledge on, and social policy to address, social
problems such as homelessness are developed that `fits' with how life is
lived, and understood, by those experiencing these problems within the structures
of contemporary society.
INTRODUCTION
Despite claims that there is now increased `freedom' for people to construct
their own individual history and socio-biography (Giddens, 1991; 1992; Beck,
1992) do `lives as lived' in late modernity remain grounded in the objective
structures of economic, social and cultural institutions? Has this structural
underpinning become obscured by the notion of increased indi- vidualization?
Developments in the social and economic structures of western societies since
the second world war have led to claims that a `trans- formation' is taking
place in how it is to live and understand our lives in a time of late or reflexive
modernity (Beck, 1992; 1999; Giddens, 1991; 2005; Beck et al., 1994). However,
if the reality and extent of this change is to be
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assessed
alongside the positive or negative impact these changes may have had on social
life, there is a need to explore empirically both `lives as lived' alongside
`lives as talked about' (Jamieson, 2004). Empirical qualitative data on how
people make sense of and can negotiate with their circum- stances can begin
to illustrate the extent to which these `transformations' have perhaps been
overstated or misunderstood. It may also be used to illus- trate how the narratives
people present about their lives are bound up in internal and external discourses
that surround the circumstances they live in, in an ongoing hermeneutical
relationship. This paper looks at how the experiences of those whose risk
of extreme inequality or difficulty (here manifested by the experience of
homeless- ness) has become reality, and how they make sense of and present
this as an event embedded in their life course. This is done through an analysis
of empirical data collected through qualitative longitudinal research. These
data consist of the participants' retrospective life history, and a series
of three in-depth interviews on their current circumstances, conducted at
six monthly intervals, over a period of a year in their life. All of the research
participants were accessing accommodation or support services designed to
assist people who had been, or were at risk of homelessness, at the time of
the life history/first interview phase of the research. Over the course of
the year in which the research was conducted, the participants' circumstances
continued to change, and this analysis allows for an exploration of both `what
happens' to people over the life course, and how people make sense of, and
talk about these events, over time. The theoretical perspectives that underpin
this analysis are briefly dis- cussed in the next section. In the remainder
of this paper the participants' biographies are analysed and the influences
they identified to explain how their circumstances changed over the course
of the research are presented, to argue that the structural underpinnings
that may still trigger problems such as homelessness have become obscured,
rather than eroded, by increased individualization. The paper concludes by
highlighting how qualitative, longitudinal research such as this may be used
to further our understanding about the processes that lead to inequality and
exclusion. By charting and analysing biographical data in this way, longitudinal
qualita- tive research can be used to examine both objectively `lives as they
are lived', and how this is subjectively conceptualized and understood by
those living them. In this way, knowledge on social problems, and the processes
that lead to them, can be based on reality and not misunderstanding. FREEDOM
OR FALLACY? CONSTRUCTING THE INDIVIDUALIZED NARRATIVE As is now well known,
Beck (1992; 1999) asserts that we currently live in a `risk' society, a qualitatively
distinct period of second modernity,
136
characterized
by the negotiation and identification of new global, incalculable, risks that
are generated as unintended consequences of the systems of modernity. This
leads to people experiencing a sense of uncer- tainty, constantly renegotiating
their circumstances, and facing new choices and challenges over their life
course, through a process of individ- ualization. Some (such as Giddens, 1991; 1992) have argued that social change has brought increased reflexivity for
individuals to construct their own individual history and socio-biography
in a time of `reflexive moder- nity'. Structural positions of class, gender,
or ethnicity, for example, become secondary to individual subjectivity and
lifestyle in the construc- tion of these biographies. As such people perceive
their individual `lifestyle' choices to be the central tenet to how secure,
or insecure, they are – `they see their decision-making as individual
`choice' rather than the product of structured constraints' (Ball et al.,
2000: 2). But does this understate the role that structural constraints actually
have, and overstate the sudden prevalence of the individualized negotiation
of risks and opportunities as a central tenet to people's life chances? Breen
and Rottman (1995: 19) argue that `commonly cited forms of stratification – class, gender, ethnicity, age and so on – are all ... bases on which
to a greater or lesser extent life chances ... are distributed'. How power,
opportunity and constraints are distributed and controlled in society is stratified
along certain lines – of which `class' position may be an important
indicator of who will have access to, and can maintain, the resources necessary
to participate in society. Resources here refer to a range of cultural, human,
social and material resources, such as educa- tion, qualifications, networks,
contacts, knowledge, possessions, along- side financial capital (Bourdieu,
1986; Coleman, 1988; Halpern, 2005; Baron et al., 2000). This is how class
is conceptualized in this paper – the access to various forms of resources
(cultural, economic, social and human) that people have due to their social
grouping of family, social networks, and often geography, that stems from
the structural position of birth, but may change over time. Other forms of
stratification, for example age and gender, will intersect with class position
in the formation of individual life chances. However, these other forms of
strat- ification appear to be identified by people more readily than class
position to explain the events that occur over their life course (Anthias,
2005; Phillips and Western, 2005). This paper argues that class position,
as it is defined here, remains important to understanding inequality in late
modernity, but may be increasingly obscured through the process of individualization.
Studies into the predicators of homelessness rarely use the term `class'; however, they do usually identify both structural and individual factors as
influencing the risk of experiencing homelessness. Predicators of
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homelessness
that have been identified through empirical research include insecure family
backgrounds, low educational attainment, long-term unemployment, drug and
alcohol misuse, experiences of living in institu- tions such as prisons, children's
homes, or hospitals, poor mental or phy- sical health, or a history of abusive
or violent relationships (Fitzpatrick et al., 2000; Fitzpatrick and Kennedy,
2000; Jones, 1995; Randall and Brown, 1999; Owens and Hendry, 2001). Whether
these factors actually `cause' homelessness or not, it is clear that people
experiencing homeless- ness often lack some or all of the resources of human,
social, cultural and economic capital, which will underpin the life chances
they have, and therefore `class' position is also an important predicator
of homelessness. A life history characterized by these predicators of homelessness
is also one characterized by trauma, difficulty and inequality, but how do
people make sense of these situations as they occur over their life course?
The problem of the relationship between the objective social situation of
individuals and their own subjective perception of that situation is not new
(Bulmer, 1975; Lauder et al., 2004). However, it is asserted in this paper
that the relationship between `what happens' over someone's life course, what
the actual circumstances of that life course have been, and how these circumstances
are subjectively talked about can be brought together in the form of biographies
to begin to understand and overcome this problem. A second assertion to be
illustrated in this paper is that dominant theoret- ical perspectives may
influence how people subjectively make sense of, and talk about, their situation,
creating a hermeneutical relationship that may obscure structural constraints,
whilst also being implicit in reproducing them. And this hermeneutical relationship
is one in which all social interac- tions and processes are bound up, including
the process of research. Even the language used in research to describe and
conceptualize biographies changes to reflect the predominant perspective of
that time. For example, the use of the term `life trajectories' implies a
set, linear course, stemming from predictable structural positions, that the
life course will develop in pre- dictable ways based on someone's class or
gender for example. However, a new structural landscape, of transforming employment,
gender and social relationships, means that people may have more options to
negotiate with now (Agulnik et al., 2002; Gershuny, 2004). Evans and Furlong
(1997) note in their exploration of theories about young peoples' transitions
to employ- ment, the loosening of these structural trajectories in late modernity,
and the emergence of post-structuralist ideas has led to this language of
`negotia- tion' to describe the transitions people experience over their life
course. This implies and emphasizes a more individualistic perspective, such
as that argued by Beck and Giddens, underpinning the idea that people feel
they have increased `freedom' to `construct' their own socio-biographies,
in an
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ongoing
process, negotiating with the different options they have. When charting and
making sense of the narratives people present of their negotia- tion into
and through homelessness, the influence that language and dis- courses may
have has to be taken into account. And as Evans and Furlong note: The fact
that people feel that they act autonomously and independently over their own
biographies is not necessarily at odds with the view that much of the biography
continues to be structured and determined by external factors ... The issue
now is the relationship between structure and agency arising from `manufactured
uncertainty' – uncertainty created by acceleration of the information
and the `knowledge society' and the increase and diversity of individual risk
situations. (1997: 37) There may be increased pluralism, flexibility and choices,
but it is an `epistemological fallacy' to suppose people can now negotiate
their own position in society (Furlong and Cartmel, 1997), without acknowledging
that the `chance' people have of being able to negotiate with the risks they
face may still be grounded to some extent in the structural class position
they began from. Has the process of individualization Beck and Giddens identify
led to people perceiving their biography is `free' for them to develop as
they wish? It is this relationship of agency and structure, and how this can
be explored through collating biographies, over time, that this paper explores.
How do people explain when their biography `goes wrong' – when the
risk of homelessness becomes a reality? Before pre- senting the strategy used
to collect and analyse these biographies, how homelessness is currently conceptualized
is briefly discussed. CONCEPTUALIZING HOMELESSNESS Some of the recent literature
on homelessness (such as Forrest, 1999; Kennet and Marsh, 1999; Hutson, 1999)
has engaged with the idea that the structural changes that characterize late
modern society means home- lessness affects an increasingly heterogeneous
group of people, and that more people may be negotiating with the risk of
homelessness than in previous eras: Flexible labour markets, greater job insecurity,
the erosion of the Keynesian Welfare state and a greater fragility in relationships
may ... mean that it is possible to fall further and faster and that risk
and insecurity are now more pervasive. Homelessness is ... a general metaphor
for severe and typically multifaceted experiences of marginality and exclusion
from mainstream society. (Forrest, 1999: 17)
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Homelessness,
and therefore what it means to `be homeless' are socially constructed concepts
(Jacobs et al., 1999). Although often seen as an objective and identifiable
phenomenon, a universal definition of home- lessness does not exist. Statutory
definitions of homelessness may exist but these are relative to the political
and social context they develop in, and change over time. Most of the literature
on homelessness acknowl- edges that it can refer to a range of circumstances,
such as being housed in inadequate accommodation, rough sleeping, or staying
with friends (Doherty et al., 2002; Cranes and Warnes, 2003; Fitzpatrick et
al., 2000). There has also been some examination of the meaning of `home'
(Somerville, 1992) and what it means to have or not have a home. However,
there has been little research exploring homeless people's own definition
of what homelessness is and how they encapsulate it (Fitzpatrick et al., 2000).
Historically, ideological and political concepts of homelessness have developed
along two lines, seeing homelessness as either an objective structural problem
requiring state intervention to address structural inequality, or as the outcome
of individual actions and behaviour – the choice, or fault, of the
individual experiencing it, or an outcome of their individual vulnerability
or characteristics, setting them apart as somehow fundamentally `different'
from those who are not homeless (Pleace, 1998; Jacobs et al., 1999). The significance
of the latter is that it individualizes the ability someone has to negotiate
with the risk of homelessness. This then `individualizes' failure, blaming
people for their inability to negotiate with risks such as homelessness, and
setting them apart as somehow `different' from people who can negotiate with
the options available to them successfully (Bauman, 1998; Furlong and Cartmel,
1997). Individuals who experience homelessness, will have multifaceted identities,
motivations and experiences. People experienc- ing homelessness will be aware
of different discourses and `knowledge' that exists about homelessness, but
if this does not fit with how they perceive themselves, when they experience
homelessness, how may this knowledge affect how they describe their circumstances?
Furthermore, if empirical knowledge about social issues does not appear to
`fit' with the subjective understanding and accounts people present of how
it is to experience these issues, it may indicate that social policy to address
these issues is shaped by misunderstanding (Jamieson, 2004). Hence the continued
importance of qualitative, longitudinal research, such as this, that builds
up biographical information on people and their circum- stances, to inform
future policies and theoretical perspectives on how social problems arise,
and can be addressed, within the structural context of late modernity.
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THE RESEARCH
Collating biographical data The empirical data utilized in this paper were
collected over an 18-month period. Initially, 75 people who were, or recently
had experienced, home- lessness, or the risk of homelessness, completed a
structured question- naire on their route into homelessness, their current
situation, and related aspects of their life such as employment, health, and
social networks. These people were recruited from 13 different support services
and accommodation projects, managed by a voluntary sector organization that
aims to assist people experiencing housing problems or homelessness in a UK
city. Therefore they were all actively engaged in accessing support services
that defined them as `homeless' and perceived themselves to be, or to have
recently been homeless or at risk of homelessness. The range of housing circumstances
this homelessness could refer to is diverse, how- ever. Some of the participants
had `slept rough' on the streets for years; others had never slept rough,
but lacked permanent accommodation and moved between hostels and bed & breakfast accommodation; some of the participants had their own home at the
time of the first interview, but were still receiving support to `maintain'
this housing, having previously been homeless; some were accessing homeless
services after being served evic- tion notices for their housing but had not
yet left that housing. From this questionnaire sample of 75, 30 people were
selected through stratified sampling (to represent a spread of age, gender
and housing situ- ation) to take part in in-depth life histories and then
three waves of in- depth interviews conducted over an 18-month period, to
discuss and chart how their circumstances had changed and what they felt about
their situ- ation. Twenty-four participants took part in all three waves,
with some contact or a second interview being conducted with a further four
of the participants. The data from these 28 people are analysed in this paper. The
sample consisted of 13 women and 15 men, with an age range of 25–60.
The data were used to collate the participants' biographies, by bringing together
the narratives they gave about both their retrospective life history and their
circumstances over the three waves of in-depth interviews. The interviews
were used to explore the processes that had led to them becoming homeless,
what they objectively did to resolve or negotiate with this situation, and
how they subjectively felt about this. Baseline informa- tion relating to
where they had lived over their life course was gathered, on the location
of that accommodation, who they lived with, how they occu- pied their time
during this period of their life (such as education, employ- ment, social
networks), how they felt about that period of their life, and what happened
to change this situation. This was taped and transcribed and
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using
these transcripts their biographies were collated, in their words. These same
issues were explored at each subsequent interview to allow for some baseline
information on the participants' circumstances to be col- lected. However,
what was important at each stage of the data collection was to allow for the
participants to discuss and describe these experiences in their own words,
whilst ensuring the baseline questions on what was `actually happening' in
their lives were covered. The research was not only biographical, as specific
sections of the interview focused on the partici- pants' opinions on services
for people experiencing homelessness, and what they thought about homelessness.
However, one of the key aims of the research was to develop detailed biographical
accounts of the partici- pants' lives before and during their experiences
of homelessness. Analysing biographical data Whilst this research examined
objectively `what happened' to people over their life course, it is also concerned
with how this is subjectively experi- enced. Ricoeur's theories of emplotment
and narrative identity (1984; 1985; 1988; 1991a; 1991b; Ezzy, 2001) were adopted
as means to under- stand how objective and subjective elements of a life are
brought together in the narratives people present of their life. Ricoeur argues
that through a process of `emplotment', actual events, and how people present
them and make sense of them as part of their `story' of life, become interwoven
sub- consciously by them, over time. People are always in a process of recon-
structing the `plot' of their past and present life, and future plans, so
that it continues to conceptually make a cohesive `whole' life story. In this
way they can maintain a sense of identity over time – they are the
`same' person today as yesterday – even if their circumstances change.
This sense of `sameness' can be maintained through the process of emplotment
because it allows for the heterogenous actual events that occur in their life
to be made into one homogenous autobiographical story through the intro- duction
of their subjective understanding of it. People use their own expe- riences,
knowledge and the external influences of different discourses to construct
this narrative or `plot' and maintain its coherence – `narrative- identity
constructs a sense of continuity and character in the plot of the story a
person tells about him or herself. The story becomes for the person their
actual history' (Ezzy, 2001: 31). This is the perspective adopted in this
analysis. People present narratives about their life, from which their biography
can be charted by the researcher. This biography will include objective things
that `have hap- pened' but these will also be described, talked about, and
explained subcon- sciously by the participants to maintain the cohesive sense
of identity, the `plot' of their life story. By constructing a cohesive narrative
of the different
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events
that have occurred in their life, they can present a cohesive autobio- graphy
and maintain ontological security. Events such as homelessness, where something
has `gone wrong' in the `plot' are crucial to explore, to understand how people
attempt to maintain this cohesion in a `crisis', and what mechanisms they
use to do so. The argument in this paper is that by utilizing qualitative
longitudinal research in this way an examination can be made of how people
do this and how agency and structure may affect the transitions people make
over their life course. There is a hermeneutical relationship implicit in
this, knowledge and ideology about homelessness, and its causes, will affect
how people define and make sense of their experience of homelessness, and
how they describe negotiating with this situation – lives as talked
about, may only present one dimension or one discourse of lives as actually
lived, even by those talking about them. And it is through research such as
this that these different dimensions of objectively `what actually happens'
over time (such as gaining permanent housing), subjectively how it is presented
and expe- rienced, and the `fit' that exists between these objective and subjective
dimensions, may begin to be identified and explored. In the next section,
this is illustrated through presenting the participants' biographies before
examining how individual choice and family background were highlighted as
key influences on people's transitions through homelessness. PRESENTING BIOGRAPHIES:
BECOMING AND BEING `HOMELESS' In the previous section, predicators of homelessness
were outlined, and these were apparent in some of the biographies of the research
partici- pants. Six of the 28 participants had been in residential care as
children, and a further two had left their parental home before they were
16 to stay with friends or other relatives. However, the biographies the participants
described were also diverse. Some described their life as `settled' and `positive'
for many years, into their fifties, before what they identified as their first
incidence of housing insecurity began. Eight of the participants described
their childhood negatively and those who had been in residen- tial care were
particularly likely to have felt their childhood was negative than those who
had not been. Twenty of the participants described their childhood as positive,
or `alright', `normal', `we had our ups and downs but nothing different from
anyone else'. However, even those who described their childhood as `normal'
often identified both structural poverty and family situations that they attributed
to their current situation: (Where we grew up) it was a room and kitchen,
outside toilets, probably a slum. It was, it was a slum, didn't have any baths
inside, outside toilets, lived there from I was about one to eighteen ...
This was from the 60s goin' up to
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the
80s and my mother moved to another house, an up and downstairs house – bath, everybody had their room but my older sister had moved on by then ...
So we were all older. I think my mother got the house a bit too late for the
family, you know. But from when I was eighteen I spent a lot of time in prison.
It was – maybe I didnae have the right like role model. My father used
to go out to work and come in drinking and he'd be drunk every day. Maybe – maybe that is something to do with it. I think it's a, nurture, nature, isn't
it? So I don't know. See, I'm not putting the blame on anything but I don't
think I was – I think I'd have stood a better chance with a father
that never drank. (39-year old male) All of the participants were asked when
they had been `most settled' in their life. Two of the participants said that
they had never felt settled. Nine of the participants reported that they were
the most settled `now' at the time of the interview. Domestic circumstances
and family life were important to how settled the participants recalled they
had felt over their life course with the remaining 17 participants saying
that they had been most settled at a point in their life when they were living
with their family or partners. The causes of their homelessness described
in the participant's narratives usually illustrated a complex interrelation
of `individual factors' (such as drug misuse and relationship breakdown) with
`trigger' events (such as attempting suicide, or prison sentences) as what
led to their homelessness, but rarely mentioned structural factors. Experiencing
homelessness was usually precipitated by the gradual deterioration of their
social and economic security. This deterioration of security that the participants
described often involved complex interactions, such as being made redun- dant
from employment due to drug misuse, at the same time as becoming increasingly
estranged from their family or stable social networks, increas- ing mental
or physical health problems occurring, and perhaps being evicted or losing
their housing due to the breakdown of a relationship, or through non-payment
of rent, which they attributed to using their income to buy drugs. In total,
16 of the participants `slept rough' whilst homeless, and 18 had experienced
homelessness repeatedly. The following quotes describe this complex interrelation
of factors that some of the participants identified: It was a lovely wee house
(I had lived in) right enough, but it was all getting condemned. They just
flattened it. So I had to move, which was the worst move I've ever made in
my life, you know. Once they put you in an area like that you can't get out.
And then my husband died. I wasn't caring, you know, I wasn't eating ... wasn't
doing anything, I was just waking up in the morning, opening a bottle, and
just sitting there all day. And I was myself then you know, the children were
all away. Once he went that was me. (59-year old female)
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I've
always had housing problems. Homeless at 16. Left my dad's. Well I never left
him, I got kicked out. I went into housing for homelessness, but they did,
they gave me a flat, but it was in a really bad area, it was full of junkies,
and I got involved, as you do. (26-year old female) Although the participants
themselves usually identified `individual' fac- tors as the primary cause
of their homelessness, it was clear from their descriptions of their transition
into homelessness, that they implicitly felt other structural and cultural
influences interacted with this. These influ- ences are identified and explored
in the following section. AGENCY, STRUCTURE AND BIOGRAPHY: MAKING SENSE OF
TRANSITIONS THROUGH HOMELESSNESS The actual pathways through homelessness
the participants took are summa- rized in Table I. How the participants discussed
their changing circumstances over the different waves of interviews allowed
for an in-depth exploration of these transitions to be made. In this section,
the extent to which the partici- pants explained transitions through homelessness
as individualized, or as a product of structures outside of their control,
is discussed. The participants were asked in the final interview to describe
why homelessness occurs and how it could be resolved and their responses highlighted
key mechanisms they identified as causing homelessness. The mechanisms they
identified could be divided into two categories; first, the individual and
their actions (agency) and second, the structure of society and inherent inequality
(structure). And usually they identified an inter- relation of these factors
as what may lead to some people's risk of homelessness became a reality. THE
INDIVIDUAL AND THEIR ACTIONS The `role of the individual' to explain homelessness
occurring fell into two further categories: explanations for homelessness
underpinned by a belief in individualized culpability, or due to the characteristics
of the person experiencing it; and explanations that highlighted that people
could negotiate with and make the `right choices' (or not) due to their upbringing
and family background. These explanations were often presented as ways to
explain other people's situation with most of the participants identifying
a more complex relation- ship of agency and structure to explain their own
experience of homelessness,
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TABLE
I Matrix of homeless history and housing outcomes (n = 28)
or
setting themselves apart as `different' from others who may actually be negotiating
with the same problems as they themselves were: Drugs have torn apart all
the communities, definitely, definitely, I wouldn't bring a (child) up in
(name of area) if I had any kids, I would try and get away into whatever area
I could, but I suppose every area is the same and all, most places. They've
done them all up and that and all, I think that's just stupid, it might make
things a wee bit better, but ... it doesn't change anything, the children
are still wild and the mothers are still wild and all! The amount of lassies
pushing prams, I never see a dad, it's all just young lassies pushing prams,
a (child) needs a da' know what I'm talking about? (And to prevent homelessness)
you need to ask for that support, don't you, do you know what
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I mean?
I think it's the drugs, people are doing that to themselves, to feed a drug
habit, they're not paying the rent, they're not caring about the house, you
know what I mean. I think you need to deal with the drugs, and make people
realize that once they lose that house they might not get another one. (39-year
old male) The following quote illustrates how a complex interaction of structural
and individual mechanisms was also identified by the participants to explain
why people become homeless: I mean you don't know the background they have
came from, might be abusive family, physical, mental whatever, I don't know
if it's getting worse, I would say if you stay in the (certain areas), see
the younger ones, the ones, there are, you know are going to turn into junkies,
you look out the window and you see them running about and you know how they'll
turn out, even ones from good families. But a lot of other folk it's their
circumstance, maybe their dad battered them or abused them or whatever. Then
again, I would say it's not just upbringing, it's the environment, that sort
of thing, if they're growing up, all jumping about there ... so I think that
is maybe, like the area also, the housing area. (29-year old female) So some
of the participants indicated belief in a discourse of `culpable' individuals,
with `illegitimacy', illegal activities such as drug use, and an erosion of
`communities' being seen as creating a group of people whose homelessness
or situation could be `predicted' as an inevitable trajectory due to their
actions. However, they also rejected that they were `the same' as this, and
appeared to both uphold these discourses whilst also rejecting that they,
as homeless people, were actually like this. This may reflect the need to
maintain a coherent and positive `narrative identity'. As the next section
illustrates, the participants' accounts of their ability to negotiate with
homelessness, due to family upbringing and `belief', highlighted this `difference'
between them, and others experiencing homelessness – whilst in fact
they may have had similar biographies. The discourse of culpability some of
the participants identified did often interact with an awareness of structural
explanations, such as the influence of a concentration of poverty and exclusion
in some housing areas; and other individual factors, particularly family background
and upbringing. Multidimensional reasons were identified by the participants
to explain why homelessness occurs, that recognized the complex inter- action
of agency and structure. In the narratives the participants presented of their
lives certain individual factors were identified, particularly that of family
background and the influence this has, which is explored in the next section.
147
FAMILY
BACKGROUND AND THE `EPISTEMOLOGICAL FALLACY' Some of the participants felt
strongly that their individual `actions' and `choices' were the reason they
negotiated a route out of homelessness. However, they felt these `choices'
stemmed from their upbringing, and the `culture' it had instilled in them:
Well the support helped (me) but I think, well, from my past, I have some
belief in myself, just in the way my parents brought me up ... I think anyone
can (find a route out of homelessness), if you want it, then, find a way,
try your hardest to do the best with what you can and not tire yourself out
with it all. (25-year old female) I think, actually (I resolved my homelessness
due to) a mixture of everything, myself and my family support, but I think,
more myself, more myself, I feel like I developed a back bone, and a will,
and a fight to live on, which I never had when I was homeless ... Because
I hit my rock bottom, I hit my rock bottom and I seen, I seen two points in
a road and just enough was enough. I'd just had enough; I didn't want it anymore,
any of it. I believe that some people, they've not known any different. I
was, I suppose I was lucky in that way that I had, that I had had a settled
life (growing up with my family), previous to being homeless and I had experienced
being settled, so I had something to compare it to. (28-year old female) Do
these individualized explanations for gaining a route out of homeless- ness
indicate that there is more flexibility and freedom for people to choose their
own `life course' but that they are `responsible' when these `choices' go
wrong and they `hit rock bottom'? Or do they indicate that discourses of individualization
and culpability actually obscure – even for those who are experiencing
it – the structural underpinnings that lead to the risk of homelessness
becoming a reality for some people? If family background is viewed as one
of the key causal mechanisms apparent in the participants' narratives to explain
why they were able to `negotiate' their own route out of homelessness and
why some people were not, does this not return to the `class' background they
started at as being a key aspect? Or at least the resources and opportunities
their family back- ground gave them access to within the economic and social
structures of the society they live in? However, rather than seeing this structural
position as something that may have negatively affected their life chances – which may have led to them becoming homeless initially – the idea of
individualization and increased freedom and agency has obscured this influence
that structural position may have on their life course. There may have been
some renewed
148
interest
in class analysis in recent years (Crompton et al., 2005; Skeggs, 2004), however,
the role that class may still have in influencing both the life chances someone
has, and the cultural and social resources they have to draw on to make sense
of and define their identity and life history certainly requires ongoing examination
(Phillips and Western, 2005; Anthias, 2005). Whilst the participants in this
research may indeed have more flexibility, and be negotiating with different
risks in late modernity than in previous generations, it also may be that
the ongoing structural underpinnings that will still denote life `chances'
are obscured by the discourse of increased individ- ualization and `freedom' – Furlong and Cartmel's (1997) epistemological fallacy of life in late modernity
in operation. The need to maintain a positive sense of identity and `ontological
security' as they made transitions through homelessness may also explain why
participants individualized their experi- ence of homelessness further by
`blaming' others in the same situation for their homelessness whilst highlighting
they were `different' due to family background and `choosing' to resolve their
homelessness. However, the par- ticipants' `chance' of becoming homeless may
have been related to their structural position and this position may actually
have been similar to others experiencing homelessness. However, the acceptance
of this discourse of individualization to how people explain the events in
their life should not be overstated either, and this is discussed in the following
section. THE STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY AND INHERENT INEQUALITY Some of the participants'
narratives included the explicit recognition that structural inequality was
the cause of homelessness, and the recognition that this structural inequality
was embedded in processes they felt to be outside their control: I think the
root problem could be just having the class system, the rich and the poor,
I think the root problem is, if you're poor, you're life is a struggle, you
know, I definitely believe that is a root problem, if you are poor, people
are not caring about what you say, you know, people have less opportunities,
and the more you struggle, the more stress you have to live with, and you
know, it's all relative to the one thing. (29-year old male) It's not just
a, it's a whole social deprivation thing going on there, with drugs, employment,
and all that. But access for people to improve their situation still isn't
there. Like education ... it's really about choice and I think unless they
provide adequate choices for people to make, then it's never really going
to change. (34-year old male)
149
So crucially,
some of the participants did describe structural inequality as the primary
cause of homelessness, and there may need to be more explo- ration of how
aware people negotiating with inequality or exclusion over their life course
are of the structural context they are negotiating with, and the extent to
which they may feel powerless to change this. Life chances are still bound
to some degree to the structural `class' position of birth, or at least the
resources it allows access to. Perhaps only those who have the resources to
enjoy increased freedom and mobility (through access to eco- nomic and cultural
capital, and resources such as education and employ- ment) are evidence of
this reflexive modernity, and the ability to create our own life course. For
those without equal access to these resources the dis- course of increased
individualization may actually act to individualize their collectively increased
risk of exclusion from some or all aspects of society, and may exclude them
further, subjectively, through the discourse of an individual whose `failure'
in society can be viewed as a product of their deviance, culpability or actions.
The influence that this may have on how people construct, present and make
sense of their life biographies, the `plot' of their life, should also be
acknowledged. It may also act to further individualize people – as
they feel they are `not the same' as other people experiencing the same situation
as they are. How they explain other people's homelessness does not fit with
how they explain their own home- lessness to maintain the cohesive `plot'
of their life, a cohesion that they require to maintain their `narrative identity'.
In the concluding section, the potential that biographical research may have
to develop greater understanding of lives as they are lived in late modernity,
and how to address problems that may arise, such as homeless- ness, are discussed.
CONCLUSION: THE ADDED VALUE OF BIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH TO UNDERSTANDING INEQUALITY
Qualitative, longitudinal research that charts biographies over time can illustrate
the long-term processes of change that people experience, the mul- tidimensional
nature of this, and particularly how people perceive both structural constraints
and acts of agency to explain the life course they have. The hermeneutical
relationship that exists between language, knowledge and `reality' means it
may be difficult to identify whether the narratives people's present are influenced
by, or actual evidence of, current social theories and ideas. It may be that
theories that state there are increased risks and individualization, enter
into the public consciousness in the form of discourse and then act to allow
for blame to be apportioned onto people for their own exclusion from some
aspects of social life. Another outcome of this is that people experiencing
inequality set themselves apart as
150
`different'
from others who are experiencing the same circumstances as them. This mechanism
then acts to obscure the structural underpinnings that actually do appear
to influence their life chances. Transitions through home- lessness occurring
within the social and political context of late modernity can be explored
using biographical research. The value of this is that the interaction of
agency and structure, and the impact this has on these transi- tions, can
be explored, in an approach that recognizes objective events over the life
course and how they are described and explained will be interwoven in a narrative
`plot' of people's lives. What requires particular exploration in the continued
analysis of this data is the extent to which people do actually recognize
the structural and cultural influences that they are negotiating with, the
existence of different, conflicting discourses of risk, responsibility, and
the role of the individual, that are actually operating, and how these may
impact on the narrative identity, and ongoing actions people may take. The
value that research of this kind will have in the future is to continue to
develop understandings of the processes that occur as people negotiate with
their life chances, inequality and opportunity in late modernity, and to `pull
together' gaps between lives as talked about and lives as lived, so that public
policy and responses to inequality can be based on an accurate understanding
of these issues. This paper is intended only to open up debate on the potential
that research such as this has, and the ongoing analysis of this data will
aim to realize this potential further and assess how individuals negotiate
with the risk of extreme inequality. Those who cannot access a home in the
current social structure may represent some of the most excluded individuals
of late modernity; however, their position and motivations are not passive
or static, they are active participants in how they negotiate with and under-
stand this situation, and this active participation must be recognized and
explored if theoretical perspectives on how it is to epistemologically and
ontologically experience life in late modernity – for everyone – illustrate reality and are not based on fallacy or misunderstanding. And this
paper asserts that research exploring the biographies people present of their
life, alongside other methods and sources, has a key role to play in the develop-
ment of these perspectives.
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NOTE
ON CONTRIBUTOR
CAROL
MCNAUGHTON is currently completing a PhD in the Department of Urban Studies
at the University of Glasgow, having previously been a Senior Policy Researcher
within the voluntary sector. Her current research interests include how the
use of biographical and other forms of qualitative research may assist in
understanding inequality, and other social problems, on a micro-level, and
how these problems may be addressed or influenced by social policy.