Synen på hemlöshet : En diskursanalys av hemlöshetsarbetet i Norrköpings kommun

• Main Author: Nilsson, Sara
• Format: Others
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Linköpings universitet, Institutionen för tematisk utbildning och forskning 2005
• Subjects: homelessness; discourse analysis; welfare; social work; Hemlöshet; diskursanalys; välfärd; socialt arbete; HUMANITIES and RELIGION; HUMANIORA och RELIGIONSVETENSKAP
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-3233

The aim of this paper is to see how the local authorities in Norrköping create a way to look at homelessness. This aim is examined with the help of the central questions: How does the municipality describe homelessness as a phenomenon? What causes to homelessness can be seen in the texts? How do they describe homeless people? And What kind of actions are used or proposed? The analysis has been done with the tools and thoughts of the critical discourse analysis and made on text documents written by politics and employees of the city of Norrköping. The theories which have been used are those of postmodernism, welfare, homelessness, civil society and relative poverty. The analysis shows that the way the municipality of Norrköping looks at homelessness correspond with the way homelessness is presented in current Swedish research. The result leads up to discussions about alternative ways of looking at some of the causes and some of the actions that prevent and reduce homelessness. Central thoughts in this paper are those of individual and structural causes that lead to homelessness. These causes are discussed with the focus on how they co-operate and what they can say about the responsibility that is shared between the city and its citizens. Another interesting thing that is shown in the analysis is that some problems are identified but more or less forgotten in further thoughts. The judgement made in this paper is that the excluded parts often are of a nature that reaches beyond the municipality’s liability.