Precarity & Adaptivity: Living on the Streets in Los Angeles, Paris, Sao Paulo, and Tokyo

• In Event: 230 - Regular Session. Homelessness

Abstract

This paper provides an analytic comparative description of the character of life on the streets among the homeless in four global cities: Los Angeles, Paris, Sao Paulo, and Tokyo. The data are derived from ethnographic, life history interviews with 100 purposely selected homeless individuals, 25 from each city. The data are organized and analyzed in terms of the concepts of precarity and adaptivity. We compare and elaborate the precarity of the everyday world of the homeless and their bricolage adaptivity or means through which they adapt to this condition.
We find considerable similarity in both the precarity and adaptivity of the homeless across the four cities, in spite of noteworthy variation in language and culture, prompting the conclusion that life conditions like homelessness have a leveling effect on cultural differences. The findings have implications for how we think about homelessness comparatively and culture more generally.

Author

• David A. Snow, University of California-Irvine