ABSTRACT
Falling asleep was not easy for most of the homeless people, the author worked in Paris during her research between 2014 and 2017. Many of her informants were affected by worries, trauma and violence; home, both in the physical form and as a mental state of well-being and order, was often not easily in reach. The author thinks through the complications of her own immersion in the field as a researcher: reflecting on encounters with two other homeless men she met, Mark and Leandre. She describes how the elusiveness of her informants and our apparent differences made access difficult. The author also describe another question which followed on from this issue of her two-sided home-making – that of her responsibility as a researcher. She spend hours walking through Paris – even once she chose to focus her fieldwork on those in the area around the Gare du Nord – searching for her informants without any means of tracking them down.
