The biographical events and experiences that we pass through as oftentimes intelligent, sensitive and creative human persons have an immense influence upon those interests, attitudes and capacities that we acquire, change and practise during our long careers as members of the planet Earth and of a particular home community. Clearly, these encounters are ones that intersubjectively confront us as persons in the social, emotional, physical and spiritual 'passages' of a long lifetime. We all know that such a personal history has an immense and deeply formative impact upon what we identify, take, and 'attune' ourselves to as ever-changing 'time warriors' living in a world of permanence and change. So, I have not been any different from most of you, when growing up, in being unable to avoid such deep-seated outcomes for how I see the social world. I will mention some of these events in the writing that follows and sketch out their importance for reproducing both homelessness and deep social inequality and the`shunting off``of human potential and the de-legitimation of most forms of actual human dignity.
I was originally a native of the United Kingdom. But as a very young infant my parents and myself became an immigrant family, the only ones amongst any of our relatives, even to this day, who moved to a new country in what the Chinese sometimes call 'Gold Mountain'; that is North America. So, my formative years were spent in eastern Canada and Quebec, growing up in a culturally diverse milieu. Since that time, I have managed to reside in more than 5 countries reaching across Europe, North America and Asia, so far. Presently, I hold citizenship in two nations. My early primary and secondary schooling took place entirely within Canadian public schools. My tertiary schooling features formal and professional training in both social science and education. Later I pursued post-graduate degrees in sociology of education, curriculum theory and educational methods. Unable to stop myself, I further specialized in motivational social psychology, intercultural addictions planning and intervention and, second language acquisition.
As a teacher, writer, CEO and, sometime student of the world I have held a long-term interest in describing, explaining, understanding and 'steering' many of the different social and economic problems as they link with the emergence and personal experience of everyday life and organizational design in post-modern, 'first world' society. In the case of this particular project, I and the other writers of the circle present, discuss and reveal , in our own unique perspectives, many different structural and experiential aspects related to the social problem of 'homelessness'.
As I've shared with you earlier, within my 'BIO' section, it was the better part of a year before I made the wrenching decision to leave my adopted Asian country, which had grown to become a major part of my life, and return to my own country. Through the relative good fortune of available social 'safety nets' in Canada I was able to find a more safe and secure existence in a homeless shelter, along with hundreds of other men and women, some of whom had endured much worse circumstances than had I. Still, for most of the men residents, the shelter was only a shorter or longer stopping place on their journey of privation in which typically only their basic needs could be routinely met.
Because of the diversity or mix of my particular set of interests, skills, capacities and biographical experiences my focus as a blog writer of 'homelessness' will tend, in its early stages, to highlight the institutions and facilities which identify and 'mediate' this chronic social problem within those economically 'advanced' western societies considered by 'global experts' as members of the 'first world'. But the accent of my presentations and discussions may shift in its/their portrayal of 'homelessness' when I make reference and illustrate the patterns and collective responses made by other nations which may be distinctly or qualitatively different in their social, economic, cultural, ethical and historical conceptions, interventions and overall development as related to 'homelessness' phenomena found within their borders. The 'focal length' of my illustrations, and possibly the work of some of the other writers in the project circle, will likely change as `we try to portray the differences in 'treatment' of 'homelessness' as found within those nations more commonly identified as 'developing' and 'lesser developed' societies and economies of the 'second' and 'third' worlds, by the work of 'global experts', once again. As a result, I will try to portray and explain further the common and distinct patterns and functions of 'homelessness' evident within the non-western nations to the extent that I am, as an author, conceptually familiar with or, have had 'grounded experience' or, undergone face-to-face encounters with the phenomena of public and personal expressions of 'homelessness', in these other societies. I will try to use examples that are legitimately observable images or practices which have been accurately described or rationally characterized, and part of a sanctioned wider world system of social and political inequality, endemic neglect and patterned domestic and international repression of identifiable social classes of marginalized 'homeless' persons; who are oftentimes ethnically marked and stigmatized .
Despite the vivid personal experiences and 'rebrutalization' practices, emergent as state sanctioned de-facto homelessness, immediately witnessed and endured by the author, while under different domestic socio-political regimes, over a sustained period of time, and whether such practices were situated in a 'first' or a 'third' world nation it is clear these days that the quality of social space and objective circumstances of this writer are not so perilous as during his previous 12 month period. Certainly the logic of the facility environment surrounding him has become more supportive and yet, at the same time, it has also become more complex, more vigilant and, filled with a greater density of formal expectations and enforced contingencies regarding his and others` conduct. So, even today, the writer you know as Viscount, is still 'perched' relatively close to the harsh realties of homelessness and all its attendant possibilities of destitution and deep demoralization. It is now less clear than ever that the systematic and cynical delivery of homeless facility practices or, the presence of a sustained climate of sinister neglect of persons which demeans, debases and erodes the self-concept, self-esteem, ego collapse and devalidation of individual effectiveness and chronic personal erosion of inherent capacities are the monopoly of only a few totalitarian regimes around our world.....maybe it`s the work of a global or world system of contempt, social control whose purpose is the reproduction of a global system of social inequality.
Viscount currently lives, works and is learning to thrive, once more, in the city of Calgary, Alberta, western Canada, but he plans on dividing his future personal and professional time between different urban centres in Canada, China and elsewhere in exotic Asia. He is the parent of two precious children: one rebellious adult son and one charming adult daughter. They both have taught their father a great deal about good living.
*********************************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment