Selfhood and inclusive publics: a critical disability lens and creative practice to ground collaborative homelessness research.

Abstract

This paper explores homelessness, research and advocacy with a critical disability lens. It reflects on several years of public space research, and advocacy in national and local networks of homelessness service providers, homeless people, and activists in Johannesburg, South Africa. The paper builds on a triad of self-(an)other-collective to unpack how sacrificing aspects of the self in conditions of extreme inequality and polarization is key for building broader collectives and inclusion. Reflecting on disability as a cause and consequence of homelessness, I offer insights from within and beyond research methods on everyday practices of community wellbeing. Firstly, at the level of community amongst public dwellers and interactions with individual service providers, and secondly through networks of practice-based organisations. The social model of disability clarifies systems of exclusion, de-pathologizing people living with homelessness, critical for expanding publics and inclusion. The paper explores moving towards collaborative and co-created research, guided by community and creative practice, drawing from the intersection of theory and practice around homelessness and disability. It also examines how the sustainability of collaboration also rests on internal shifts, which this paper explores through autoethnographic analysis of the author's merging art and research practices. While practising public art has been valuable in building relationships in public space research, my art practice also aids in healing my own pyscho-spiritual self and bringing me more into community. The paper also follows Paula Toledo in centering curiosity as a basis for compassion and connection, key for substantive collaboration across difference, which also requires openness and honesty about complicity in conditions of inequality. It concludes by drawing out methodological implications from the intersection of these ideas, arguing for greater attention in research to time, play, creativity, openness about personal connection, and the importance of collaboration.