Homelessness and Sense of Place
Produced as part of the First Year History of the Present module, Evie and Isaac unsettle the concept of ‘sense of place’ through an investigation into homelessness in Bristol, specifically surrounding ‘The Bear Pit’ roundabout. By drawing upon a multi-sensory and embodied perspective of inhabiting these uncertain liminal spaces, they consider how place meaning can be found in unconventional ways.
What can a geographical approach to the senses tell us about the experience of homelessness in Bristol?
Figure 1: Homelessness in Bristol. Bristol 24/7 News.
When we think of ‘place’, we might think of location, at its most elemental. However, the idea of ‘space and place’ in the geography of the senses also considers the role of individual sensory experience in places, are made and the role places play in the constitution of society. Sensory experiences of space and place are commonly associated with those who have a strong sense of place and belonging, but we often fail to consider the experience of those who do not. Figure 2 provides insights from Bristol City Council into the issue of homelessness in Bristol from 2022-23. Homelessness in Bristol provides an opportunity to explain the experience of those who are dis-‘placed’ and the environment that is created.
What is ‘place’?
Figure 2: Key Facts 2023. Bristol City Council.
To understand an embodied account of homelessness we must consider how individuals interact with the senses. Each sensory engagement with a space is different, so each person produces different places for that space. Place can be social and share meaning, or it can be detached and isolating as individuals ‘repeatedly couple and uncouple their paths with other’s paths.[i] Touch plays a role in creating place. We interact with space through people and objects. Furthermore, proprioception (perception of oneself as a body in space) and kinaesthesia (experience of moving through space) inform our movements. Movement conditions how we sense; with rhythm and mobility we find a sense of place. Mobile experiences of place and belonging may be transient and fleeting as well as associated with prolonged or repeated movements. For those without homes in Bristol, rhythm and mobility is experienced differently and may be unreliable, disruptive, and therefore out of touch with those of the city and its inhabitants. This leaves the homeless feeling ‘out of place’ or problematic as they move from space to space each day.
How can we relate ‘place’ to the homeless?
In an investigation into ‘Place Detachment and the Psychology of Nonbelonging’ in Diepsloot Township in South Africa, researchers found that African informal settlements can be seen as “‘estuarial zones’: confluences of migrations from multiple urban and rural ‘elsewheres’”.[ii] Could we then perceive informal settlements in Bristol (tents and sleeping bags in sheltered areas) as ‘estuarial zones’ where confluences of migrations from everyday life (from traffic to commuters) stride by. Homeless people’s senses of place are therefore ones of temporariness, disinvestment, and detachment. The body is displaced, and the temporary sleeping spaces are seen as ‘a spatio-temporal interregnum where the body remains cut-off from the mind that imagines a ‘home’ (or place with belonging) elsewhere.[iii] The homeless are then branded social outcasts for not finding a place within the prevailing rhythms of Bristol’s city life. However, with an epistemological approach, one can “perform place belonging in a way that is beyond our discursive performances (place identity) or expressed feeling states (place attachment)”, through sensory experience.
Embodied Account
Figure 3: The homeless pitch tents in The Bear Pit. Bristol Live.
An embodied account of homelessness not only helps us understand it as a lived and felt experience but also reveals the unconventional agency homeless people exercise as members of an informal and liminal space. Homeless people can be conceived to operate in a state of permanent temporariness, often locating themselves in areas which housed people would assign no real meaning. In such locations, where housed people pass through sensorially disengaged, homeless people may make use of their unique senses to contribute to it a sense of belonging. The St James Barton roundabout in Bristol surrounds what is known colloquially as ‘The Bear Pit’, it serves as an urban space where homeless people have been known to pitch tents and make use of abandoned shelters. Homeless people have referenced both community and safety when asked about residing there, suggesting that in their displaced placement, they together grapple with a sense of place and comfort whilst immersed within the surrounding rhythms of movement, smell and audio. In the periphery, traffic flows at a varied pace below high-rise buildings which jut beyond the trees and circular railings demarcating the area. Engines growl, fade and work in tandem with footsteps of those passing through to impede the privacy and silence associated with standard accommodation. The chatter and laughter of those who associate The Bear Pit with ‘the roundabout near Cabot Circus shops’ or the scratching and skidding of beaten-up skateboards along ledges serve as a reminder that this is also a place of leisure to many. Potentially awoken by rain slashing down and leaking into the tents, or frost stiffening fingers that zip up thin jumpers. Exposed to fumes, dust, temperature and light change acting on the senses beyond their control, homeless people may utilise their sense of stillness and company to affirm a sense of place in a space that is otherwise a sensed realm of constant flux. Further, the physical possessions of homeless people, such as miscellaneous objects accumulated over time, damp pillows and sleeping bags, help give an anchored sense of identity and serve to establish that place is created through the sight and touch of familiar items. Therefore, through a sensorial investigation into homelessness, the psychological domain concerning it can be better understood.
Figure 4: Anti-homeless spikes. Andrew Horton/ Worldview Media, The Independent.
Defensive architecture and public attitudes
To apply this sensorial account, we can consider how the senses inform attitudes of both people experiencing homelessness and those who perceive homeless people in public places. With a lack of control over the design, re-design and order of public spaces and furniture, homeless people incidentally react sensorially to decisions of government endorsed urban planners/architects. 'Defensive architecture' is a common 'physical mechanism' used by both governments and private landlords to segregate which areas are and are not occupiable.'; e.g. anti-homeless spikes.[iv]
Figure 5: A long expanse of bench along the river at Glass Wharf is divided with metal arm rests making it impossible for anyone to comfortably lie down. Bristol Live.
This, through sight and touch, reinforces a sentiment of non-belonging amongst homeless people as it further burdens them in their search for comfort. However, public opinion appears to condemn this hostility. In an article from the Independent, Andrew Horton of Woking, Surrey took a picture of studs outside a block of privately-owned flats on Southwark Bridge Road, shown in Figure 4. He stated: “I can’t say for certain, but it certainly looked like they were placed there to deter homeless people. It’s dreadful.”[v] Circulating social media, user @CraigMcVegas described them as “barbarism”, stating: “A society should be judged on how it treats its most vulnerable.”[vi] Furthermore, Katherine Sacks-Jones, head of policy and campaigns at homeless charity Crisis, stated: “It is a scandal that anyone should sleep on the streets in 21st century Britain.”[vii] Defensive architecture in the form of arm rests on benches or spikes on the pavement directly contributes to inhibiting the homeless’ ability to find sensorial comfort and a sense of place. Figure 5 also shows an example of defensive architecture in Bristol. To enable homeless people to create a sense of place, at the least on a bench, or in a sheltered corner, we must abolish the harsh spikes and splintered arm rests that affect their sense of touch, and therefore place.
When investigating homelessness in Bristol, a geographical approach to the senses informs a sense of non-belonging from the outside looking in. This embodied perspective also reveals a more hopeful yet upsetting idea that a sense of place can be found amongst the littered tunnels and cold pavements that the average citizen ignores, but the homeless are forced to find refuge in.
[i] Tim Edensor, ‘Introduction: Thinking about Rhythm and Space’ in Geographies of Rhythm : Nature, Place, Mobilities and Bodies (Abingdon: New York, Taylor and Francis Group, 2010), p. 2, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.bris.idm.oclc.org/lib/bristol/detail.action?docID=4512777 [last accessed 4th March 2024]
[ii] Kevin Durrheim, Ursula Lau and Lisa S. Young, ‘Place Detachment and the Psychology of Nonbelonging: Lessons from Diepsloot Township’ in Changing Senses of Place Navigating Global Challenges (Cambridge University Press, 2021), p. 104, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769471.011 [last accessed 4th March 2024]
[iii] Ibid., p. 108.
[iv] Alexander Conway, Academia.edu Publishing, ‘No Place like home: the social geography of homelessness’ (2024) https://www.academia.edu/24492632/No_place_like_home_the_social_geography_of_homelessness [last accessed 4th March 2024]
[v] Heather Saul, ‘”Homeless spikes” outside London flats spark outrage on Twitter’, The Independent, 10th June 2014 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/homelessness-spikes-outside-london-flats-spark-outrage-on-twitter-9506390.html [last accessed 4th March 2024]
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] Ibid.