You Can Dance If You Want To!

Can anyone guess what this guy is doing? Yes, he is dancing, but you want to know something more? This guy is homeless. He was dancing to Frank Sinatra, clumsily coordinated I might add! Can you imagine that? Why did I choose to include this in my blog?

We usually walk or drive past the street dwellers, sometimes trying to avoid them, without even giving a second thought about who they are or what they have done. Admittedly I have fallen into this category as well. But this blog has really given me the opportunity to pay them attention, and stop on the pavement and wonder a little about their life. Like this guy! 

Fortunately some places have given street dwellers consideration. For example the Wake Forest University in North Carolina have an annual dance competition to support the homeless. Their members of staff, professors and students put on their dancing shoes in an effort to raise money for the homeless of Bethesda. 

But what about the homeless showcasing their own talent. "What talent?" you might ask. But look at the following video and then tell me if you got an answer to your own question.....

Accommodations

This post is dedicated to a lecture presented on the theme of Urban Architecture.

A recent debate argues that our local Trinidad is post modern, while others were contesting this theory. This post seeks to highlight the architectural factor that can be considered to give insight into this fascinating topic.

Architecture, as it is defined, is both the process and the product of designing environments for people which reflect a range of practical and aesthetic considerations (Hall and Barrett, 2012).
A facet of architecture as we know it as defensive architecture, which is described as the dystopian side to post modern architecture. Why? Because it is designed to exclude 'undesirables' as beggars or rough sleepers from the public realm (Pacione 2009). The cities of the world, namely post modern cities, emplyed various strategies to keep such 'order.' For e.g.

 (Source: New York Times, March 4th 2009)

So where does that leave Trinidad? How does Trinidad compare to the 'cities of the world?' Well, to put it simply....we accommodate the homeless! Want proof? Check my picture at the top of this post! :-)

House vs. Home

So far I have been exploring different stories of people perceived to be socially displaced. But as the title of my blog shows, what really is homeless? One definition of homelessness describes it as a condition of people without a regular dwelling. But the problem with that is that now "a regular dwelling" need a definition! Who defines "a regular dwelling?" I would say that definition is null and void. Hence the reason why Kennett (1999) said that meanings are not fixed but are continually contested, formed and re-formed in the context of political, social, cultural and economic struggles. Homelessness is a category which has shifted dramatically over time and space. In other words  it is an historically and culturally specific phenomenon and a relative concept, (Townsend, 1979) where people make judgments about their own deprivation on the basis of what they see around them. Castoriadias describes it this way:

The construction of its own world by each and every society is... the creation of a world of meanings  its social imaginary significations, which organize the natural world, create a social world proper to each society  establish the ways in which socialized and humanized individuals are to be fabricated, and institute the motives, values and hierarchies of social (human) life. (Castoriadis, 1991, p 42)

Thus, how homelessness is understood in each society reflects the ways the society is organised. Part of the difficulty of defining homelessness lies in the concept of 'home' as distinct from 'house'. Houses are relatively easy to reduce to the notion of dwelling, the material of physical structure that provides shelter, but homes are not.Given the traditionally dominant association of women with the family, with the domestic and the private arenas, home is likely to have particularly strong gendered connotations and so also is homelessness. So, when you see this picture, what comes to your mind? Homeless or houseless?