Social and Cultural Geography has just published a paper of mine, on homelessness, Facebook, and the relation between social media, affects, and poverty. It is called ‘The Spectacle of the Poor’ and it can be downloaded here. The paper is based on the image above – read the abstract below to know more.
Lancione, M. 2014. “The Spectacle of the Poor. Or: ‘Wow!! Awesome. Nice to Know That People Care!’” Social & Cultural Geography. doi:10.1080/14649365.2014.916742.
On the night of 14 November 2012, a police officer of the New York Police Department encountered a homeless person while performing his duties around Times Square. He gave him a pair of boots and while doing so, he was photographed by a tourist. The photo was posted on Facebook, receiving in a few days more than 1.6 million visits. The paper unfolds the reasons why this particular image and story have gone, as the media has put it, ‘viral’. The paper investigates the spaces that have emerged in the media elongation of DePrimo’s practice of care and, introducing the notion of ‘spectacle of the poor’, it argues that this specific case simplifies the dominant western framings around matter of ‘caring
for the poor’. The political and cultural consequences of these framings are investigated, and reflections on how to tackle them provided.