Date of Award

2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Dean, Erin

Keywords

Sarasota, Florida, Homelessness, The Marbut Report

Area of Concentration

Environmental Studies

Abstract

Following Ferguson’s (1990) methodology of studying the ‘development apparatus’ through analyzing professional development reports, this thesis examines the professional ‘homeless management apparatus’ in Sarasota, Florida by analyzing ‘The Marbut Report,’ a professional homeless management report created to represent homelessness in Sarasota as an issue created by the local “culture of enablement” and recommends twelve steps to shift to a “culture of engagement.” These recommendations sparked public debate, and since the city and county commission’s decision to end their pursuit of the report’s recommendations, Sarasota community members have created their own forms of “engagement” with homelessness. Through analyzing academic literature about the development of professional homeless management, and the report’s theoretical constructions that diverge from this literature, I argue that the report diverges from the academic literature in the same ways. This study will focus on the apparatus that provides social services to the homeless; the operation of the homeless management apparatus in a particular setting; Sarasota, FL. To get at this I will discuss the process by which a homeless management initiative in Sarasota, “The Marbut Report”, came to be endorsed, written, researched, produced, published, contested, reinterpreted, and reimagined.

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