The Unaccommodated Woman: Home, Homelessness and Identity
Abstract
‘Home’ and ‘homelessness’ serve to define each other at a phenomenological level. For the settled population, homelessness is a source of fascination and repulsion, an embodiment of their fears (of poverty and alienation) and their dreams (of freedom and simplicity). The ‘unaccommodated woman’ in particular is an aberration and a contradiction in terms: the gender renegade who has rejected, or been rejected by, traditional family and domestic structures. The home has been constructed as a source of identity and as an essential foundation of social order. Such order, however, is based on the experiences of many women of the home as a prison. These ‘homeless-at-home’ women experience abuse, violence and the suppression of self within the supposed safe haven of the domestic home. The article draws on the author's own ethnographic research with homeless women and men within the Three Cities Project on youth homelessness and crime, and concludes by examining two ways of being homeless: identity work and the management of bodily space.
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The experience of domestic violence is one of being homeless at home.
“Wardaugh (1999) has suggested that the experience of domestic violence is o e of ei g ho eless at ho e .”
From Children’s embodied experience of living with domestic violence: “I’d go into my panic, and shake, really bad” (2016) · cites this paper as Wardaugh (1999)
When the safe spaces of the home are unsettled and become part of the experience of torture and violence, this contributes to the disruption of our sense of self by re-signifying the safe spaces of home, remaking them as dangerous, as weapons of violence.
“When the safe spaces of the home are unsettled, when they become a part of the experience of torture and violence, this contributes to the disruption of our sense of self, by re-signifying the safe spaces of home, remaking them as dangerous, as weapons of violence.”
From Children’s embodied experience of living with domestic violence: “I’d go into my panic, and shake, really bad” (2016) · cites this paper as Wardaugh (1999)
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Understanding Home: A Critical Review of the Literature
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- Authors
- Wardhaugh, J.
- Affiliations
- Bangor University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Wardhaugh, Julia
- Venue
- The Sociological Review
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1999-02
- Volume
- 47
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 91-109
- ISSN
- 0038-0261 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-954X
- OpenAlex
- W1965249785
- Cited by
- 259
- References
- 33
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 16 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 10
- FWCI
- 6.35
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Sociological Review (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Homelessness and Social Issues
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender and Feminist Studies
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender Studies and Social Issues
- Keywords
- homelessness, women, home, identity, gender, domestic violence, abuse, identity work, bodily space, youth homelessness, domesticity, social order
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