The Right to Pass Freely: Circulation, Begging, and The Bounded Self

Abstract

Scholars of public space criticize regulation governing the behaviour of the public poor for both its illiberal effects and motivations. The arguments used to justify such regulation are frequently characterized as a smokescreen that conceal more sinister agendas, and are thus often overlooked by critics. But to fail to take such arguments seriously, I argue, is to miss their political traction. This, I suggest, has less to do with their inherent truthfulness than with their basis in a prevailing social imaginary that can be characterized as broadly liberal. As such, they reflect and help constitute a powerfully hegemonic view. At their core is a particular conception of the atomistic self-governing individual, engaged in dyadic relations, structured according to a logic of negative rights and autonomy. Begging, in particular, threatens the boundaries that lie at the core of this account: in particular, those that surround and protect the mobile subject. Rather than just damning the illiberalism of this law-talk, in other words, critics would do better to also recognize and critique its liberal nature.