Enacting the utopia of eradicating homelessness: toward a new generation of activity-theoretical studies of learning

ABSTRACT

Eradicating homelessness is one of the most pressing challenges for efforts aimed at equity and social justice in the world. Many people who experience homelessness have histories of violence, growing up in child protection institutions, involvement in criminal activities, and mental and health problems connected with substance abuse. Homelessness is, therefore, a phenomenon which requires coherent and consistent cross-sectoral service integration and interorganisational service production. The way this challenge has been addressed so far in Finland may be interpreted as enacting a utopia when compared with other realities and the predominant views of impossibility to eradicate homelessness which stem from them. The article drafts an agenda aimed at disclosing how the utopia of eradicating homelessness is being enacted, what learning this involves, and how research on work and learning can concretely mediate and support the enactment processes.

KEYWORDS:

• Enacted utopias
• homelessness
• Finnish Housing First
• Change Laboratory
• expansive learning
• transformative agency
• fourth-generation activity theory

Acknowledgements

A preliminary draft of the theoretical section of this article was presented in a keynote address I gave at the Researching Work and Learning Conference at Rhodes University in South Africa in December 2017. In this context, I received valuable feedback which helped the shaping of the agenda presented here. In particular, I thank Prof. Heila Lotz-Sisitka, Dr Mutizwa Mukute and Dr Charles Chikunda, and express all my gratitude to Dr Victor Tichaona Pesanayi for the discussions we had during the conference.

The empirical example stems from a project on learning for the enacted utopia of eradicating homelessness that received no external funding. The project is funded with basic research resources from the Faculty of Education and Culture at Tampere University. For this, I wish to warmly thank former Dean Risto Honkonen and Dean Päivi Pahta for believing in this project. Members of the RESET research group Prof. Emeritus Yrjö Engeström and Researcher, Docent Hannele Kerosuo are vital contributors to the project. Also, I am extremely grateful to the numerous experts and practitioners involved in the project for their trust and collaboration.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).