‘Come Night-time, It’s a War Zone’: Women’s Experiences of Homelessness, Risk and Public Space

Abstract

Abstract This paper explores constructions of ‘risk’ in the lives of women experiencing homelessness in Brisbane, Australia. Drawing on ethnographic data, including in-depth interviews, informal conversations and participant observation field notes, two main themes emerged: the narratives or risk; women navigating risk on the streets by employing transiency, invisibility and squatting. The analysis indicates that women consider the ways in which risk calculations are spatially and temporally located and argues that risk is embedded in social and cultural discourses of gender. Women experiencing homelessness face particular risks due to gendered spatiality and have to manage their spatialized selves to avoid everyday risks on the streets.