Increasing the Potential for Gaze, Surveillance and Normalisation: the transformation of an Australian policy for people who are homeless.

Abstract

Michel Foucault analysed the origins and social function served by institutions such as the prison and the clinic, explored the links between knowledge and power, and the body as a location or site of such social power. In this article, Foucault's analysis is applied to an Australian program for people who are homeless. After outlining a theoretical framework which emphases Foucault's theme of increasing surveillance being used for the purposes of greater regulation and control, this article analyses the changes that have occurred in the program. It is argued that initially the program was intended to assist non-government agencies to provide a range of services, including short-term crisis accommodation services, after which clients would move to independent housing. However, due to the lack of affordable and appropriate houses for clients to enter after their stay in agencies, clients have been forced to stay in funded agencies for longer than is otherwise necessary. Among other things, this program has adapted by providing more short-to-medium term accommodation and case management for clients which, in turn, has led to an extension of the time clients remain in agencies and greater intensity of service provision. It is argued that this has resulted in increased potential for surveillance, control and regulation.

Homelessness and social control: a typology

“…Likewise, a number of scholars have drawn normative distinctions between the ostensibly 'caring' approach of 'low threshold' services on the one hand, and the apparently 'callous' approach of services that deploy more 'conditional' techniques (see for example Bowpitt et al, 2013;Cloke et al, 2010;Evans, 2011;Fopp, 2002;Scanlon & Adlam, 2008). Studies illuminating compassionate or ambivalent motives underpinning both types of initiatives go some way to problematizing these accounts (see for example Deverteuil et al, 2009;Forrest, 2014;Hansen Lofstrand, 2015;Johnsen & Fitzpatrick, 2010;Laurenson & Collins, 2007;Murphy, 2009;Scullion et al, 2015), but negative portrayals of the use of social control in this field nevertheless predominate.…”

Controlling Letting Arrangements? Landlords and surveillance in the private rented sector?

“…Indeed, although some attention has been given to surveillance activities in the housing field, such as homelessness (see : Fopp, 2002), and in relation to anti-social behaviour in the social rented sector, (see : Papps, 1998;Hunter et al, 2000;Hunter and Nixon, 2001), the activities of private landlords have rarely been thought of in the context of surveillance (but see : Lister, 2002a) yet there is considerable scope to consider their activities in this way. For instance, regular formal inspections of rented property by landlords or their agents are a routine part of property management (Trott, 1998).…”

Talking about Gypsies: The Notion of Discourse as Control

“…The behaviour control becomes so internalised that it is a routine rather than a specific control. Fopp (2002) looked at `increasing the potential for gaze, surveillance and normalisation' by examining an Australian homelessness policy. He found that the homelessness policy under scrutiny kept homeless families in short-stay, agency funded accommodation, for longer than they needed to.…”