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To Be a Homeless Woman in Russia: Coping Strategies and Meanings of ‘Home’ on the Street
This chapter explores the affective strategies of homeless women and how they use buildings and public spaces in Russia to construct a ‘home’ on the street. Research suggests that there is an important gender dimension to the problem of homelessness (Edgar and Doherty, 2001; Watson, 2000) and that women’s homelessness has remained largely invisible because of the particular stigma attached to the ‘unaccommodated woman’ – representative of a form of deviance, even if she may be simultaneously viewed as a victim and in need (Wardhaugh, 1999). Homeless women therefore disappear from the institutional spaces of homeless shelters and frequently rely on precarious arrangements to be housed (Pleace, 1998; Shinn, 2010). This chapter is based on research of homeless women conducted in St Petersburg. It explores women’s affective strategies of coping on the street, place making and meanings given to ‘home’.
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