The mobile hermit and the city: considering links between places, objects, and identities in social psychological research on homelessness.

This article explores aspects of a homeless man's everyday life and his use of material objects to maintain a sense of place in the city. We are interested in the complex functions of walking, listening and reading as social practices central to how this man forges a life as a mobile hermit across physical and imagined locales. This highlights connections between physical place, use of material objects, imagination, and sense of self. Our analysis illustrates the value of paying attention to geographical locations and objects in social psychological research on homelessness.

Amenable mortality within the New Zealand homeless population: we can do better!

AIM: To describe the context surrounding the deaths of homeless people in New Zealand and to determine the proportion of deaths that could be considered amenable to healthcare. METHOD: We used coroners' findings related to 171 deaths of persons with "no fixed abode" at the time of death, from 2008 to 2019. Recent lists of amenable mortality from the New Zealand Ministry of Health and the Office of National Statistics in the UK were combined to determine the rate of amenable mortality. RESULTS: The life expectancy of homeless persons identified in this sample was 30 years shorter than in the housed population, with a mean age of death of 45.7 years. Deaths occurred mainly alone, in public spaces (56.1%) or in private vehicles (14%). Three-quarters (75.8%) of homeless persons died from conditions amenable to timely and effective healthcare interventions, mostly from natural causes (45.7%) and suicide (41.5%). CONCLUSION: Homeless people experience considerable challenges when accessing the healthcare system, as uncovered by the dramatic rate of amenable mortality. Our findings highlight the urgent need to implement specific models of care that are designed to meet the social and healthcare needs of homeless persons and address the significant health inequalities they experience.

Questioning 'black humour': racial exploitation, media and health.

This commentary explores the relevance of media racism to health psychology. While supporting Dr Estacio's call for health psychologists to get involved in promoting social justice via the media, we propose that health psychologists should not overstate the negative influence of the media on racism in society. Media content is complex and contradictory. It contains both racist and anti-racist representations. Challenging racism requires a conceptualization of links between the representational spaces provided by the media and the everyday geographic places within which inter-personal interactions and exploitation occur.

Men's re-placement: Social practices in a Men's Shed.

Transitions into retirement can be difficult at the best of times. Many men find themselves having to reflect on who they are and what their lives are about. Their access to social supports and material resources are often disrupted. Men's Sheds offer a space where retired men can actively pursue wellbeing, and respond to disruption and loneliness through emplaced community practices. This paper draws on ethnographic research in a Men's Shed in Auckland, New Zealand in order to explore the social practices through which men create a shared space for themselves in which they can engage in meaningful relationships with each other. We document how participants work in concert to create a space in which they can be together through collective labour. Their emplacement in the shed affords opportunities for supported transitions into retirement and for engaging healthy lives beyond paid employment.

Nutritionism and the construction of 'poor choices' in families facing food insecurity.

The dominant research approach to both food insecurity and charitable meal provision is nutritionistic, deficit-orientated and ignores wider socio-economic issues. This reinforces existing power dynamics and overlooks the agency of people living food-insecure lives. We critique this dominant approach and draw on the everyday experiences of families facing food insecurity to ground an alternative approach that emphasises food as a social determinant of health.

Being healthy in unhealthy places: health tactics in a homeless lifeworld.

Street life can compromise a person's health. In response, homeless people exert considerable agency in attempts to preserve their health. Drawing on ethnographic research in central Auckland, this article explores the ways in which a homeless man maintains his health. We consider the tactics Clinton develops to maintain his health and to gain respite while living on the streets, an unhealthy place. Of particular note are the ways in which he works to transform a 'landscape of despair' into a 'landscape of care'. The case of Clinton foregrounds the fundamentally emplaced and relational nature of homeless peoples' health.

Metonymic objects, cultural practices and narrative repair: Sri Lankan responses to the Indian Ocean tsunami.

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami resulted in a tragic loss of life and immense suffering. This article explores the ways in which a group of people from Sri Lanka worked to address the disruption to their life narratives caused by the loss of loved ones. We go beyond a focus on 'talk' in narrative research in health psychology to explore the importance of material objects in sustaining continued bonds with the deceased. This article provides an alternative to the tendency in mainstream psychology to pathologise grief and highlights the importance of culturally patterned responses to disaster.

"Near and far": social distancing in domiciled characterisations of homeless people.

For domiciled individuals, homeless people provide a disturbing reminder that all is not right with the world. Reactions to seeing homeless people frequently encompass repulsion, discomfort, sympathy and sometimes futility. This paper considers domiciled constructions of homeless people drawn from interviews with 16 participants recruited in the central business district of a New Zealand city. It documents how, when trying to make sense of this complex social problem, domiciled people draw on shared characterizations of homeless people. The concept of "social distance" is used to interrogate the shifting and sometimes incongruous reactions evident in participant accounts. "Social distancing" is conceptualised as a dynamic communal practice existing in interactions between human beings and reflected in the ways that domiciled people talk about their experiences with homeless individuals.