Abstract:
This text presents a methodological position. Homelessness is less interesting as a study object closed around itself than as a means to access the world in which it exists. As an analytical object, homelessness can be methodologically understood as multidimensional paradigm (an exemplar) whose study allows us to understand several of the most relevant social phenomena in the Western modern societal model. With this positioning in mind, the sociology of homelessness is replaced by a sociology that works through homelessness, using this phenomenon to approach the set of power relations that characterize this societal model. Without intending to put forward an exhaustive list of phenomena that can be understood through it, among the various expressions of power that are accessible by the study of homelessness one can count poverty, the life of homo sacer in a state of permanent exception, and the government of disqualified otherness.
Keywords:
Methodology; Homelessness; Paradigm; Poverty; Power