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Darci Pauser (Anthropology Major)
“Houseless”
Sponsor: Professor Lawrence Cohen, Anthropology
Project Description
Darci will be traveling to New York City to conduct anthropological fieldwork on homelessness. Specifically, this work will be an exploration of the way in which the discourse of choice, freedom, and resistance is utilized in the lives of those who view their homeless condition as a choice-- those Darci terms "houseless." The data collected through interviews and surveys will provide means for a comparative analysis with work she has been doing in Berkeley for the past year and a half. Along with interviews and surveys, Darci will be doing her first fieldwork in visual anthropology, taking photographs of houseless people as well as giving cameras to informants, in order to visually depict the dialectical relationship between researcher and informant. This research will culminate in a comparative analysis of houselessness and an exhibition of photographs in the Worth Ryder Gallery.
Scholar's Photo
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Darci dances in the mosh/skank pit of a concert at Thomkins Square Park in the East Village, New York.
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Scholar's Journal
Homelessness is a broad spectrum, encompassing many different kinds of people in many different situations. The emphasis on explanations of pathologies, economic strife, and addiction as a cause of homelessness has created an absence of research on those who want to be homeless, those I term “houseless”. The desire to be houseless stems from disillusionment with society and a desire to be outside the mainstream, but the idea of choice must still be problematized. For example, how can we do justice to the aspect of choice while still grappling with the human suffering present in this way of life? Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted for two months in the East Village in New York City with participant-observation and in-depth interviews with ten people. Within these interviews and informal conversations, I discovered the social critiques employed by this group of homeless and the insight they possess. Through observation and photography, I explored the aesthetic and sub-cultural aspects the
houseless, with punk-rock style, “being dirty”, train paraphernalia, and squatter symbols playing a role in their everyday material life.
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