Beier A. L. - Cast Out

Cast Out

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VAGRANCY AND HOMELESSNESS IN
GLOBAL AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Edited by

A. L. Beier and Paul Ocobock

Ohio University Research in International Studies
Global and Comparative Studies Series No. 8
Ohio University Press
Athens

2008 by the
Center for International Studies
Ohio University
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cast out : vagrancy and homelessness in global and historical perspective / edited by A. L. Beier and Paul Ocobock. 1st ed.

p. cm. (Ohio University research in international studies. Global and comparative studies series ; no. 8)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-89680-262-9 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Homelessness. 2. Vagrancy. 3. Poverty. I. Beier, A. L. II. Ocobock, Paul R. (Paul Robert), 1980

HV4480.C37 2008

362.5dc22

2008027559

Paul Ocobock

A. L. Beier

Linda Woodbridge

A. L. Beier

David Arnold

Richard B. Allen

Thomas H. Holloway

Andrew A. Gentes

Vincent DiGirolamo

Frank Tobias Higbie

Andrew Burton and Paul Ocobock

Aminda M. Smith

Robert Gordon

Abby Margolis

First and foremost we thank the History Department at Princeton University for hosting the conference from which many of these papers were drawn. The conference was generously funded by the History Department as well as the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. For their support in meeting royalty costs for the books cover, we thank the Department of History and the College of Arts and Sciences of Illinois State University and Ohio University Press. We also extend our gratitude to the contributors of this volume, who have been a pleasure to work with and have brought so many intriguing studies into a shared and sustained conversation. Finally, thanks to Gillian Berchowitz and the editors of Ohio University Press for their constant patience and help.

Introduction

Vagrancy and Homelessness in Global and Historical Perspective

Paul Ocobock

Vagrants, vagabonds, tramps, beggars, bums, mendicants, idlers, indigents, itinerants, the underclass, and the homelessall these names and legal categories seek to describe poor, unemployed, and highly mobile peoplepeople who form the focal point of this collection of essays. Vagrancy laws are unique; while most crimes are defined by actions, vagrancy laws make no specific action or inaction illegal. Rather the laws are based on personal condition, state of being, and social and economic status. Thus, vagrancy can mean and be many different things to many people, and therein lies its legal importance as a broad, overarching mechanism to control and punish a selective group of people.

Yet what are these qualities that arouse the suspicion of police and transform people into vagrants? Through history, those so labeled and arrested for vagrancy have often been poor, young, able-bodied, unemployed, rootless, and homeless. As the geography and heterogeneity of punishable social ills increased, more and more fell under the classification of vagrancy.

As a result, explaining what vagrancy means, who vagrants are, and why they attract the ire of the state, is fraught with difficulty. As this collection of essays attests, vagrants can be peasant farmers, literate ex-soldiers, famine victims, former slaves, beggars, political agitators, newsboys, migrant laborers, street people, squatters, and in some cases, those the state and the upper classes feared had breached social norms. Yet, the complicated nature of vagrancy and its connections to human labor, mobility, behavior, and status have made it a useful historical tool to scholars. Historians have used the concept of vagrancy to examine a vast array of processes, including the development and impact of the market economy, migration of labor, construction of modern states and imperial structures, formation of subcultures among the poor, rapidity of urbanization, and responses to poverty through charity, welfare, or prosecution. Since the 1960s, when the first historical work was conducted on vagrancy, the topic has remained divided by region and time period. Most histories of vagrancy have focused on European and American experiences from the medieval period to the twentieth century; after all vagrancy is a European invention. Even recent scholarship on vagrancy in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East has focused on periods in which European notions of poverty and vagrancy law have been adopted through the imposition or influence of European law. In many ways, this collection of essays cannot escape the European experience. However, over half the chapters focus on regions outside Europe, and in each instance the authors seek to explore the ways in which vagrancy diverged from its European counterpart once introduced to the wider world. Furthermore, the collection attempts to bridge some of the geographic, temporal, and disciplinary divides that have discouraged a global history of vagrancy and homelessness. The purpose of juxtaposing these works is not to expose a uniformity of vagrancys form and function among nations and across centuries, but rather to explore the development of vagrancy (or lack thereof) as a common response to managing poverty, labor, and social norms, and how this strategy changed over time and adapted to regional peculiarities.

The contributions in this collection straddle seven centuries, five continents, and several academic disciplines. They delve deeper into the struggle of societies to understand and alleviate chronic poverty, whether through private charity, criminalization, institutionalization, or compulsory labor. Some chapters illustrate the power of vagrancy laws as coercive engines in punishment and exploitation; others highlight the utter failure of vagrancy policies at the hands of human agency, state incapacity, and persistent personal charity. Several of the chapters envision vagrancy as a lifestyle, by choice and circumstance, in which people define themselves by both opposing and appropriating cultural norms. The authors offer fresh perspectives on old historiographical debates or new research in fields that have yet to fully investigate vagrancy and homelessness.