Challenges of homeless resistance in civil society– reanalysing a participatory action research project in Norway

The field of homelessness holds a special place between the welfare state and the private market and has become an important area of work for religious non-profit organizations. This paper examines the relationship between contentious citizens and an NGO that supported them. What possibilities for resistance exist for homeless people within a self-organized project in Oslo, and what barriers do they encounter? The paper is based on a four-year fieldwork and action research project aimed at establishing a self-governed housing facility for homeless people in Oslo. The data comprises interviews, surveys, field notes, dialogue seminars and documents. The analysis was conducted in cooperation with the participants, but was reanalysed by the author. Tensions arose between the project and the NGO in two main areas: the project's autonomy and the residents' reluctance to participate in NGO fundraising campaigns as examples of the NGO's benevolence. The residents resisted through collective actions and media attention, while the NGO exercised power through technologies of close-ups and governance. The acts of resistance are interpreted through Spivak and Rancière's ideas of dissensus and acting as organic intellectuals. The power of NGOs can be understood in light of the concepts of consensus and psychobiography. The article discusses these challenges as a tension between neoliberal management and radical ideals in the NGO. Active citizenship, action research, protest and other types of resistance were framed by the fetishization of the homeless, leading to the NGO co-opting the resistance. Thereby the NGO maintained a radical image but undermined everyday resistance.