ABSTRACT
Ousted Vagrancy explores roaming, loitering, and the unhomely as spatial opportunities via temporary occupations and inhabitations. Vagrancy connects to transgression through the freedom of movement across and beyond spatial boundaries. Loitering reestablishes temporary spatial occupation in contrast to the controls enforced on public and civic spaces in urban planning. The unhomely explores the embodiment of space – a fusing of vagrancy and inhabitancy by the homeless and refugees within the infrastructures of the urban environment. Section one Roaming Where looks at the history and stigmatization of how the vagrant-vagabond, viewed as the antithesis to the moral civilian became the enemy of the people in Medieval and Victorian societies and the present victimization regarding refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, and the homeless. Section two Loitering How reviews how determinant spaces such as public squares are prone to becoming situationally indeterminant when populated. Forms of occupying public space vary depending on the occupants’ intentions: relaxation, contemplation, looking at others, and transient passing. Yet, loitering in public space insinuates an indeterminant cause and thereby comprises the opposite side to the right of lingering in public. Section three Unhomely As looks at institutional indifference, disappearance, and isolation towards the homeless and wider refugees. It reviews the unhomely beyond the strange and familiar connections of the home is to rethink the conception of home to the spatial occupations by refugees and the homeless in the city.
