The poor in public space – prescribed practices, forbidden practices

Abstract

In one of his books Erving Goffman writes that “in many situations certain categories of persons may not be authorized to be present, and that should they be present, this in itself will constitute an improper act” and without doubt this statement refers to poor persons. Analyses carried out within the framework of the “Discourses of poverty and social exclusion” research project have shown that the issue of presence or its denial in public spaces and places constitutes a category that often permeates the ways of constructing and presenting poverty and the poor. Therefore places that are appropriate for the poor, as well as those to which access is limited or forbidden are discursively constructed.

It is therefore interesting both in what situational conditions the poor are prohibited to enter and when such a ban gets lifted. In this paper, referring to the grid of analytical categories proposed by Goffman, I would like to reconstruct the ways of locating the poor in public spaces and the position that they may occupy in these spaces – conditions allowing their presence, reasons for exclusion and removal, as well as adaptation practices. In this analysis the floor will be taken by the non-poor (representatives of social institutions), that is by those that dominate in these discourses and influence the outlining of areas of admission and areas of inaccessibility.