Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.5613/rzs.54.1.3
“I’ve Been Through a Lot... More Bad Than Good Things in Life” - Women’s Pathways to Homelessness in the Croatian Context
Lynette Šikić-Mićanović
; Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Zagreb, Croatia
Paula Greiner
orcid.org/0000-0003-2692-4757
; Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The article analyses in detail the lives and experiences of women who are homeless, with a special focus on their “pathways” to homelessness and the “turning points” that led to it. The research is based on qualitative materials collected as part of an international project on homelessness. CSRP: Exploring Homelessness and Pathways to Social Inclusion: A Comparative Study of Contexts and Challenges in Swiss and Croatian Cities (No. IZHRZO_180631/1). It relies on ethnographic fieldwork, participant observation, and semi-structured and walk-along interviews conducted with homeless women. In addition to their own explanations, this research holistically analyses their biographies to understand how various challenges permeated their lives, eventually leading to homelessness. This article presents three case studies that provide detailed insight into the complex combination of circumstances, experiences, and events that lead to homelessness. It also shows the heterogeneity of their “paths” and how the interaction and culmination of individual challenges and structural factors in the Croatian context can lead to the most extreme forms of homelessness. Finally, this article demonstrates that efforts to address and prevent homelessness require a much more detailed and nuanced understanding of the underlying issues, needs, vulnerabilities, and processes that interact to culminate in the experience of homelessness.
Keywords
ethnography of pathways to homelessness; triggers of homelessness; turning points to homelessness; case studies of homelessness; biographical study of homeless women
Hrčak ID:
319081
URI
Publication date:
30.4.2024.
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