Year: 2020
Type: dissertation
Abstract: \nStreet Papers: An Educational Tool for Social Change \nMaria Daniela Aranibar Zeballos \nDiscourses and representations of homelessness and poverty tend to emphasize individual factors, while disregarding systemic causes. However, public discourses are shifting, as local governments begin to recognize structural inequalities that propel individuals into poverty and take them into account in policymaking. Therefore, initiatives that reframe representations of homelessness, need to be properly examined. \nThis research project examines the processes through which public understandings of homelessness can be transformed by looking at one such initiative: street newspapers. With an urban qualitative methodological approach, this project assesses the educational value of Montreal’s local street paper, L’Itinéraire. I analyze the data analysis results using a theoretical lens based on social justice and public pedagogy frameworks. \nThis project addresses three research questions: \n(1) How does participation in street papers impact the sense of agency of those who have experienced homelessness or poverty, if at all? \n(2) Does reading street papers influence individuals perception of homelessness and poverty? \n(3) How might public actions/attitudes towards homelessness and poverty be impacted? \nMy results show that L’Itinéraire impacts the sense of agency of its vendors, and shifts readers’ perspectives on homelessness, poverty and other social issues by enabling them to critically interrogate common sources of knowledge production, by legitimizing marginalized voices, by starting processes of collective reflection on current social structures and by ultimately creating spaces for social action. However, vendors and readers alike feel their ability to enact social change is limited, especially at an individual level.
Authors: Aranibar Zeballos, María Daniela
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3112404954