De la survie à la reconnaissance: Ethnologie de personnes « sans logis » à Paris (original) (raw)

From survival to recognition: Ethnology of "homeless" people in Paris. Through an ethnographic investigation, made in May 2006, fifty one cases of "homeless" people were studied. "Homeless" people are considered as people with no social, economic and personal conditions that allow them to have housing and as a result, they sleep "outside", in a tent, under a bridge or in a house made with materials from the city. Using the ethnographic method-long duration of active observation, careful and discreet holding of a notebook to mention the daily observations, the author learns by physical experience, "by body", the daily difficulties regarding the hygiene, the occupation of public places, and especially the efforts made to encounter the feelings of shame and "social contempt", and to have access to some forms of recognition marked by the pride and the social esteem. Those people fight against the "social contempt" in different ways: some of them settle down in "corners" or in the margins of the city to be less visible, others try to erase all forms of precariousness on their bodies, and others join the manifestation of "Enfants de Don Quichotte" in fall 2006 in Paris. During these paths, going from survival to recognition, the people make us see and think about the logics of domination which are at the same time moral, physical, and cognitive and which characterize their social status.