Living absence:the strange geographies of missing people

In: Parr , H , Stevenson , O , Fyfe , N & Woolnough , P 2015 , ' Living absence : the strange geographies of missing people ' Environment and Planning D: Society and Space , vol 33 , no. 2 , pp. 191-208 . DOI:10.1068/d14080p

Abstract

In this paper 'missing people' gain an unstable presence through their (restaged) testimonies recounting individual occupations of material urban public space during the lived practice of absence. We explore 'missing experience' with reference to homeless geographies, and as constituted by paradoxical spatialities in which people are both absent and present. We seek to understand such urban geographies of absence through diverse voices of missing people, who discuss their embodiment of unusual rhythmic occupations of the city. We conclude by considering how a new politics of missing people might take account of such voices in ways to think further about rights-to-be-absent in the city.