Performing an Anti-Homeless City

Abstract

In the time of globalization, many cities, including the city of Victoria in BC, have engaged in a development model fueled by investment, tourism, and economic immigration. This model requires public authorities to implement policies that contribute to making cities worthy of capital, tourists, and immigrants. Digital connectivity, real estate development, local amenities, and revitalized neighbourhoods are essential ingredients for economic development. In contrast, poverty and urban decay are not good for the way of life that politicians, entrepreneurs, tourists, and urbanites desire. Therefore, all visual manifestations of urban decay, including homelessness, should be restricted by law. In response to this development model, homeless people are forced to perform actions that are banned like building tent cities in parks. In doing so, homeless people challenge exclusionary legal and spatial orderings that support anti-homeless cities.
 This paper develops a performativity-based approach to legal geography to contribute to the debate about homelessness in Canada. Rather than focusing on the social right to housing, my argument in this paper zeroes in on the right to use urban space without being excluded. To this goal, I explore interactions between local authorities, homeless people, and other social actors in Victoria to explain that reiterated human interaction is the means to perform and rectify legal and spatial orderings that segregate homeless people. Thus, the performativity-based approach to legal geography developed throughout this paper illustrates not only how anti-homeless cities are socially performed, but also how they are collectively contested.