Abstract

Footwork is an original street-corner ethnography drawing on the themes of urban regeneration, lost space and the 24-hour city. From the rough sleeping homeless to street drinkers and sex workers, it shows how urban modernisation, development and austerity politics impact the hidden lives of people living and working on the streets.

To create this anthropology of the modern British city, Footwork follows the work of a team of outreach workers in Cardiff, tasked to look out for the homeless and others similarly vulnerable, harried and exposed. Tom Hall’s fieldwork study encompasses aspects of urban geography, care work and street-level poverty, violence and isolation, this book reveals the stories of the vulnerable and isolated - people living in the city we often choose to ignore.
'A brilliant, insightful and at times very funny portrait of hidden lives and those who care for them. This is a beautifully written and erudite book about city life that exudes a deep but irreverent sense of humanity'
Les Back, Professor of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London
'A rare glimpse into the physical world and urban spaces of rough sleepers who live in the city though often unacknowledged. A sensitive and evocative account'
Professor Setha Low, City University of New York
'Combines extensive ethnographic research and scholarship, poetic writing and remarkable empathy to illuminate the lives of those who survive and sleep on city streets and to show brilliantly the mobile, skilful, humane ways in which care and outreach workers seek relate to and help them'
Professor Harry Ferguson, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham