Changing homelessness services: revanchism, 'professionalisation' and resistance

This paper argues that the increasing international salience of homelessness can be partially explained by reference to the revanchist thesis (involving processes of coerced exclusion and abjection), but the situation on the ground is more complex. It reports on interviews with 18 representatives of 11 homelessness service providers in one city in England. As Cloke et al. found, these providers tended to be either larger, more 'professional', 'insider' services or smaller, more 'amateur', 'outsider' services. However, this does not mean that the former were necessarily more revanchist and the latter less so. Rather, the actions of both types of organisation could, in some cases, be construed as both advancing and counteracting a revanchist project

Introduction: Streetlife - the Shifting Sociologies of the Street

The street has long been a key laboratory for studies of social life, from the roots of urban sociology in the ethnographies of the Chicago School to the diverse range of contemporary studies which consider the performative, affective and non-representational nature of street etiquette and encounter. For all this, the street remains only loosely defined in many studies, and sometimes disappears from view entirely, with social action often privileged over material and environmental context. This Special Issue is intended as a spur to take the street more seriously in contemporary sociology, and explores the importance of the street as a site, scale and field for sociological research. Recognising that the street is both contradictory and complex, in the Introduction to this Issue we draw out emerging themes in the shifting sociologies of the street by highlighting the specific contribution inter-disciplinary work can make to our understanding of streets as distinctive but contested social spaces

Introduction to sociology

xvii, 646, A70 p. : ill. (some col.), col. maps ; 28 cm

Introduction to sociology

683 p. ; 24 c

Introduction to sociology

xxvii, 821 p. ; 24 cm

Essentials of Sociology

the book is constructed around a number of basic themes, each of which helps to give the work of a distinctive character.xviii, 476 p.; ill.: 28 cm