HOMELESSNESS

EPISTEMOLOGIES ABOUT BODIES, HETEROGENEITY AND RACISM

Abstract

With the aim of discussing norms and heterogeneity that define the phenomenon of homelessness, the present text takes up marginalised epistemologies that address the topic of racism in Brazil. Our goal is to highlight the way in which normative definitions deviate from the problem of social disintegration, establishing stigmatising cause-and-effect relationships with people who are permanently on the streets. Relying on a transversal methodological approach, with authors from different fields of knowledge, it is possible to identify that the norms and heterogeneity acting on the phenomenon analysed are based on arbitrary binaries such as “health” and “disease”, “body” and “spirit”, “caucasoid” and “negroid”. The conclusions indicate that the normalisation of homeless people as a heterogenous social group reproduces biological-social, non-citizen, and narcissistic superiority notions particular to the white supremacy.