This study investigates the interplay and social relationships between young street dwellers and middle class residents, businesses, and police in one specific neighbourhood in urban Brazil. The purpose of this study was to: (1) examine the hegemonic exclusionary discourses that happen regarding ‘other’ poor people in general and boys and young men on the street in particular; (2) map out exclusionary mechanisms that guard the socio-spatial boundaries of an elite neighbourhood; and (3) explore less known but equally important inclusionary mechanisms, facilitating street life and enabling a sense of belonging among the young homeless.”
The researcher used longitudinal, ethnographic research to document patterns of prejudice along exclusionary and inclusionary practices involving young men living on the street within the area studied. This longitudinal and ethnographic study stretches over a decade and the same group of boys originally inhabiting one specific neighbourhood (Barra) in their transitions into adulthood. The research included participant observation, narrative interviews with young street dwellers, and semi-structured interviews with middle class residents, businesses, and police officers.
In reviewing literature, Ursin notes that in the context of urban Brazil, poor young men are scapegoated for criminal activity. Ursin continues that the young men who occupy public space are categorized as “street youth” and labelled as an “abject” and “dangerous underclass” that poses a threat to public safety. By being posed as a threat, these young men are often excluded from social life and public space.
Ursin’s study noted that residents in his study attributed undesirable characteristics to the boys and young men (and the poor in general). In doing this, they emphasized the “difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’.” Ursin continued to note that residents and businesses posited issues as matters of hygiene to argue for the improvement of urban space for the sake of tourism and described street vendors as ‘filth’. The police continued this line of thinking by using terms that referred to sweeping the homeless off the streets. Thereby equating social order with the sanitizing of social space. Further, Ursin states that residents and business owners use their own social and financial superiority to establish street dwellers as “others.” Street dwellers acknowledged awareness of these feelings by the residents and noted how they felt unknown and misunderstood.
The study also discusses how the subjects create, maintain, and reinforce spatial boundaries. Ursin recorded a strong sense anxiety among the residents and business owners. This anxiety was demonstrated in attempts to restrict access to the poor through attempts to limit bus services, attempts to deport young street dwellers to the outskirts of the city, and other restrictive policies.
Ursin concluded that relationships between residents and street dwellers resulted in practices of exclusion that attempted to displace street vendors and homeless people. The discourses among residents, business owners, and police rendered street dwellers as dirty, criminal, and undesirable.
