Moral Distinctions and Structural Inequality: Homeless Youth Salvaging the Self

Abstract

This paper explores the construction and contestation of moral distinctions as a dimension of contemporary structural inequality through a focus on the subjectivities constructed by young people who have experienced homelessness. Empirical material from two research projects shows that in young people's narratives of homelessness, material insecurity intertwines with the moral economies at work in neoliberal capitalist societies to construct homelessness as a state of moral disgrace, in which an ungovernable experience is experienced as a moral failure. When young people gain access to secure housing, the increasing stability and security of their lives is narrated in terms of a moral adherence to personal responsibility and disciplined conduct. Overall the paper describes an economy of worth organized around distinctions between order and chaos, self-governance and unruliness, morality and disgrace, which structures the experience of homelessness. As young people's position in relation to these moral ideals reflects the material conditions of their lives, their experiences demonstrate the way that moral hierarchies contribute to the existence and experience of structural inequalities in neoliberal capitalist societies.

Agency in advanced liberal services: grounding sociological knowledge in homeless people's accounts

“…Our findings have important implications for the sociological literature on homelessness, agency and neoliberalism, and for service providers looking to deliver services in a way that enables, rather than undermines, people's agency. First, our findings about people's engagement in ‘relational reasoning’ (Clarke et al ) add to recent sociological contributions that associate agency with accounts that challenge neoliberal discourses (e.g., Farrugia et al ; Gonyea and Melekis ; Shildrick and MacDonald ; Woolford and Nelund ). People actively related their accounts of the Gain Model to problems, goals and relationships that were meaningful to them.…”

“…Woolford and Nelund 2013) or society more broadly (cf. Farrugia et al 2016), we resist this temptation. Instead, we now examine how service users themselves accounted for their perspectives by relating them to particular problems that the Gain Model attempted to address.…”

“…Farrugia et al's () study of formerly homeless youth, although not explicitly using the terms agency and resistance, offers another example. When youth narrate their transition out of homelessness as a process of learning to ‘self‐govern’ (a form of agency promoted by neoliberalism) it demonstrates that they have internalized the ‘cultural hierarchies and moral distinctions’ that constitute the ‘moral economies’ of ‘neoliberal capitalist societies’.…”

“…When youth narrate their transition out of homelessness as a process of learning to ‘self‐govern’ (a form of agency promoted by neoliberalism) it demonstrates that they have internalized the ‘cultural hierarchies and moral distinctions’ that constitute the ‘moral economies’ of ‘neoliberal capitalist societies’. However, when youth credit their intimate relationships with enabling their transitions out of homelessness their accounts illustrate the ‘ways in which the moral demands of neoliberal capitalism may be subverted, escaped or avoided for a time’ – a characterization that implies the youth are active agents (Farrugia et al : 253, our emphasis).…”

“…Specifically, sociologists associate agency with accounts that resist or subvert dominant neoliberal framings of homelessness as the failure of individuals to exercise autonomy and personal responsibility. Yet, when people experiencing homelessness or poverty themselves foreground autonomy or responsibility, they are ‘cultural dopes’ (Garfinkel : 68) who have internalised neoliberal discourse (Farrugia, Smyth and Harrison ; Woolford and Nelund ).…”