1. Homeless Youth on the Road and in the Streets
The anthropology of deviance
“sub-cultures”
Urban anthropology
The anthropology of space and place

2. The Anthropology of Deviance

3. Deviance
Modes of action which do not conform to the norms or values held by most of the members of a group or society.
What is regarded as 'deviant' is as widely variable as the norms and values that distinguish different cultures and subcultures from one another.
Many forms of behaviour which are highly esteemed in one context, or by one group, are regarded negatively by others.

4. Deviance
shared sense of order (predictability): the meanings we attach to people, things, and actions.
"Otherness" (differentness) challenges our assumptions, our taken-for-granted sense of normalcy and naturalness
Deviance is problematic, yet essential and intrinsic to any conception of Social Order.

5. Deviance & Social Control
Deviance is a label (PROCESS) used to maintain the power, control, and position of a dominant group.
Deviance is a negotiated order.
The definition of deviance defines the threat and allows for containment and control of the threat
definition of deviance preserves, protects, and defines group interests and in doing so maintains a sense of normalcy.
Deviance is a product of Social Interaction.

6. Deviance and Conformity
Social constructions
idealized conduct is most clearly seen in marginalized people
deviance forces them into "discredited" or "discreditable" groups, based on the nature of their stigma
deviance & the existence of a stigma

7. Stigma
"mark of infamy or disgrace; sign of moral blemish; stain or reproach caused by dishonorable conduct; reproachful characterization" (Webster, 1913)
Social stigma
social disapproval of personal characteristics or beliefs that are against cultural norms
social stigma often leads to marginalization

8. Normality/abnormality
Multi-dimensional concepts
Represents a range of possible perceptions
Of what is normal and not normal
Whether it is controlled or not by the norms of society
Times & places people can behave in an abnormal way
Most cultures disapprove of forms of public behavior that are obviously not being controlled

9. Zones of social behavior

10. Zones of social behavior
Not static, fluid categories, spectrum of possibilities
Change with time & circumstance
Normal in one group – abnormal in another
Controlled normality (A)
Uncontrolled normality (D)
Controlled abnormality (B)
Uncontrolled abnormality (C)

11. Zones of social behavior
A, D, B – it is assumed that the individual is at least aware of what the social norms are
Whether they conform or not
Substance use
Traversing the categories of “bad” and “mad”
Criminal & Intoxication
Temporary madness

12. Which Group?
Modes of action which do not conform to the norms or values held by most of the members of a group or society
Deviance, stigma, zones of social behavior
Reminder: What is regarded as 'deviant' is as widely variable as the norms and values that distinguish different cultures and subcultures from one another.

13. “sub-cultures”
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a set of people with distinct sets of behavior and beliefs that differentiate them from a larger culture of which they are a part.
The subculture may be distinctive because of the age of its members, or by their race, ethnicity, class and/or gender
the qualities that determine a subculture as distinct may be aesthetic, religious, occupational, political, sexual or a combination of these factors

14. Sub-cultures Versus “community”
Sub-cultures have come to designate social groups which are perceived to deviate from the normative ideals of some community
Small-scale association of people united by a common interest
Sub = “beneath” or “within”
Variance from a larger normal, average, dominant collectivity
Consciousness of otherness or difference

15. Sub-cultures & difference
Difference defined in contrast to existing norms
As opposing category – embraces those norms in the process of differentiation
Social & cultural reproduction
Mimesis & alterity
Hegemony -- the dominance of one group over other groups, with or without the threat of force

16. Hegemony & Cultural Control
Cultural perspectives become skewed to favor the dominant group.
The cultural control that hegemony asserts affects commonplace patterns of thought
Hegemony controls the way new ideas are rejected or become naturalized in a process that subtly alters notions of common sense in a given society.

17. Cultural hegemony
Cultural hegemony is a concept coined by Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci.
a diverse culture can be ruled or dominated by one group or class, that everyday practices and shared beliefs provide the foundation for complex systems of domination.
What’s bad, mad, normal, deviant, etc.

18. Urban Anthropology
The urban – spatially dense, heterogeneous population
Heterogeneity & “sub-cultures”
Anthropology & ethnography applied to the study of urban phenomena
the causes, processes and consequences of urban migration and urbanization
cross-cultural similarities and variations in urban ways of life
how people negotiate urban life as a particular sociocultural world
rural-urban influences, neighborhoods, ethnicities, subcultures, social networks and stratification to understand how social relations are constructed and how cultural knowledge is distributed in cities

19. Conceptual Approaches
ecology models
community, family, and network analyses
studies of power/knowledge of planning and architecture
supralocal/local linkage analyses
political economic, representational, and discursive models of the city

20. City(s) The ethnic city - mosaic of enclaves
The divided city – hidden barriers of race & class
The gendered city – a male preserve
The contested city -- attention to ‘spatialising’ of culture
The de-industrialized city
The global city
The informational city
The modernist & post-modernist city
The sacred city
The fortress city

21. Urbanity
“The processes of segregation establish moral distances which make the city a mosaic little worlds which touch but do not interpenetrate.
This make it possible for individuals to pass quickly and easily from one moral milieu to another, and encourages the fascinating but dangerous experiment of living at the same time in several different contiguous, but otherwise widely separated worlds” (Park 1952:47)

22. dominant research trends in urban anthropology
Post-structural studies of race, class and gender in urban context
Structure & agency
political economic studies of transnational culture
studies of the symbolic and social production of urban space and planning

23. Space & Place
Place and space -- central constructs within geography, archaeology, architecture and landscape architecture.
emphasized spatial thinking, visualization, and the use of non-linear and conceptual modes of representation (maping, drawing, and model building).
other academic disciplines rarely studied space and place.
architectural design, settlement layout, or the visual character of a region as the “setting”
spatial patterns, the meanings that groups and individuals attach to landscape and built environment, and spatial modes of problem solving usually not considered

24. The anthropology of space & place
Built environments
place is a space to which meaning has been inscribed
space as an abstract, universal, non-cultural phenomenon
we only have place: experienced, practiced, local
Built world and geographies as systems of signs and symbols
a language of signification

25. two different approaches to space/place
one that emphasizes the experiential, situational, sensual, contingent aspects of space
the other emphasizes the brute force of power, the structural, and the continuity of structuring principles of built environments

26. Re-Thinking GEOGRAPHIES OF IDENTITY
Spatial-cultural habits of mind, body,
immutable link between cultures, peoples, and identities & specific places
notion of culture based on the inseparability of identity from place
Deterritorialization
Diasporic public spheres -- part of the cultural dynamic of urban life in most countries
migration and mass mediation

27. GEOGRAPHIES OF IDENTITY: PUBLIC & PRIVATE/DOMESTIC SPHERES/PLACES
opposition between domestic (reproduction), private, & public (production) provides the basis of a framework to identify and explore place
Domestic/private: public sphere clearly drawn in societies where division of labor encompasses more than age & sex differentiation
mobility not just through geographic space but social space (associations)

28. Home and Street
The term street children refers to children for whom the street more than their family has become their real home.
It includes children who might not necessarily be homeless or without families, but who live in situations where there is no protection, supervision, or direction from responsible adults.

29. Stigma
The public view of street children in many countries is overwhelmingly negative.
The public has often supported efforts to get these children off the street, even though they may result in police round ups, or even murder.
There is an alarming tendency by some law enforcement personnel and civilians, business proprietors and their private security firms, to view street children as almost sub-human.

30. Children in the U.S.
The United States is one of only two countries in the world that have not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
Somalia—a country without an internationally-recognized government—is the other.

31. Abuse as Deviance deviance destroys the credibility of the normative
Conformity (cultural & social) and the family as normative behavior & interactions
Deviant behavior & interactions & expectations
Damages the expectations of cultural conformity
Family as site of emotional life & learning
Damages the character of the individuals

32. Abusive Family Life to Street Life
The emphasis on idealized, normative identity and conduct limits the ability of the discredited individual to achieve full acceptance by the population that he or she is forced to assimilate into.
For the discreditable individual who attempts to "pass" and employ "disidentifiers" to establish him/herself as "normal" (44), feelings of ambivalence and alienation emerge as a result of limited social intercourse.

33. Street Life as Normative
idealized, normative identity and conduct of street life provides another social milieu for the individual to achieve full acceptance by the population that he or she chooses to assimilate into.
Can "pass" and employ "identifiers" to establish him/herself as "normal" (44)
Loss of feelings of ambivalence and alienation emerge as a result of changing context of social intercourse.