'SDF' & the Construction of a Local Law & Order System: Normalizing Public Spaces & the Assigning of Identity

This article considers the modes of development of a local law & order system. It is elaborated on an empirical research taking for space framework a railway station of province in France. It shows how the identity assigned to the homeless people is built within this physical & symbolic space (and its multiple functional subspaces). The identity assigned to the homeless by various actors of the station is relatively fluid. Flexible cognitive categories evaluating the level of deviance/conformity are used by the actors. These classifying operations, never completely stabilized, permit us to understand how the suitable standards are constituted collectively for a public space.and how these standards may be used as a basis for the deployment of various modes of social reaction. References. Adapted from the source document.