Homeless: the story of a wandering Self. Inhabitable mirrors for possible reflections

This work concerns the autobiographical reasoning of people without fixed residence. Such complex and heterogeneous population, usually connoted by the word “without”, has a special collocation in the social space: its margins. My research is therefore an exploration of social margins, an attempt to recognize what their “inhabitants” really lack and to find features, skills and psychological resources that homeless people do have. Moderately participant observation and semi-structured interviews have been my methodological tools. I carried out my research by participation in mobile social volunteering teams and in an Aid Center for irregular homeless migrants. The great majority of the encounters I had with homeless people occurred as informal dialogues, in the course of my moderately participant observing activity. For my interviews, I decided to use a story-telling approach: I asked my subjects to think about their life as if it were a book, and I suggested that, in this way, their story could be articulated into different “Chapters”, that I asked my subjects to narrate me. Finally, I used a simple tool to sketch out their personal values and beliefs. I chose an autobiographical method because I reckon that it provides a rich approach to the subject’s point of view on his Past, Present and Future Self, identifying the turning points (which are often falling points) of his life, as he perceives them. Moreover, following the subject throughout his narration is a means for understanding his thinking dynamics and his sense-giving processes. Indeed, the wandering mind can be described as a constant danger of losing sense: sense of one’s body, sense of time, sense of space, and ability to interact with the others. Hence, the wandering self always risks losing himself. Previous social and psychological research often assumed that homeless people have in fact already lost a coherent and meaningful sense of self: this is, basically, what they are “without”. On the contrary, I argue that a wandering mind is not a mere lack, but rather an endless movement towards a valued and meaningful self, which is an uncertain and fragile idea, when one lives on the margins. In my view, the three wide landmarks of human identity, i. e. personal identity, cultural identity and social status, are present and ceaseless put at stake in a homeless life, and they are therefore the objects of a continuous negotiation, of a quest for balance. Such inner negotiation develops in various living rituals, psychological strategies and beliefs on one’s self: I think that all of these behavioral and reasoning techniques can be seen as an extreme effort of reflection. Indeed, the homeless subject is often a person who misses the other’s gaze on himself (and this feeling of not being viewed, of not being touched by the primary object, often comes from childhood), and so he strives to find a mirror for his image in the world outside. This is probably the “home” a wandering mind searches for. Listening to a homeless person’s life story is, in this sense, offering him an inhabitable mirror. This is why the autobiographical reasoning of a homeless person can never be separated from his externality: his body, his appearance, his way of moving, his gestures, distance he keeps with his interlocutor, the tone and rhythm of his voice - in other words all that concerns proxemics - is radically implicated in his expression, communication and reflective effort. In an investigation on the margins, sensory perception is a fundamental level of listening. Effectively, proxemics codes represent a cross-cultural archetypical language for human beings, and the observation of homeless people’s use or breach of this grammar is essential for attempting a deep reading of their stories. This kind of reading compels the researcher to really relate to the homeless person, developing a (difficult) relationship that takes place on the margin between excessive technical distance and dangerous emotive closeness. Horning in on this fragile margin is probably a vital starting point for developing methods of social assistance based on dialogue, active listening and re-valorization of personal resources.