For cultural interpretation: A study of the culture of homelessness

Abstract

The role of interpretation in cultural and media studies is constantly debated. Through an interpretation of the culture of homelessness in the United States, this paper attempts to demonstrate the value of conjunctural interpretive analysis. Such an analysis is multilevel (ranging from macrostructures to micropractices), multimodal (encompassing texts, practices, empirical data, mediations, organizations, and policy), and explicitly theoretical and political. The paper also addresses some of the differences between a critical‐structural analysis and analyses produced by other, more positivist epistemologies.