Frozen Lives: Notes on the US Homeless

Abstract

These field notes and commentary are part of the project that culminated in a paper titled “How does It Feel to Be a Problem? The Diasporic Identity of the Homeless.” The project was an exploratory research into the homeless identity, where besides the in-depth interviews with homeless people chosen from homeless shelters across Southern Illinois, I conducted ethnographic field research through passive and semi-participatory observation of various shelters across Southern Illinois. The research project was reviewed and approved by the Southern Illinois University, Carbondale's Human Subjects Committee.

Keywords:

• homelessness
• capitalism
• identity
• anomie
• alienation

Notes

¹See “Half of US Food Goes to Waste,” accessed February 25, 2010, http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Supply-Chain/Half-of-US-food-goes-to-waste.