ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes that to understand how people survive adversity people need to study the ordinary as well as the extraordinary in their lives. The research was initiated through ongoing research collaboration with the Auckland city mission and was conducted at the Ngati Whatua Orakei Marae. The concept of landscapes of despair can be used to refer to homeless people's use of extraordinary spaces such as streets, doorways and motorway over-bridges to create an urban landscape of everyday life that is associated with disruption, stress, despair and illness. The chapter focuses on these ordinary practices that texture the marae as a place for Maori homeless men in Auckland to belong. A social psychology of everyday life needs to delve into these processes and issues of difference in order to produce knowledge that is relevant to the groups of interest.
