| dc.description.abstract |
Washington D.C.'s monumental core is a unique space in which discourses circulate like taxi cabs and individuals are hailed as U.S. citizens. The city, itself, is a body of knowledge: the monuments, the museums, and the parks were designed with a didactic dimension meant to inspire and instruct individuals on the ways of citizenship. Homelessness has existed side by side to D.C.'s monumental core throughout the city's history of D.C., but it is not included in the discourses that circulate in the monumental core; rather, it exists in the silence behind the discourses - it exists in the spaces between the discourses. In this thesis I use Michel Foucault's concept of Archaeology in order to posit an alternative history of Washington, one marked by exclusion rather than inclusion. I engage in three case studies: The 1932 Bonus March; the 1984 Supreme Court Case Clark versus The Community for Creative Non-Violence; and the 2007 Help the Homeless Walkathon. I disengage the events from normative modes of linear or causal history in order to suggest a relationship between citizenship and homelessness that is not immediately visible. While on the surface, the discourse of citizenship and that of homelessness appear to be mutually exclusive, I argue that they are in fact co-constituted. Thus, I use the term Adomizen to suggest an inextricable link between citizenship and homeownership - suggesting further that if one lacks a home one also lacks citizenship. |
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