| This thesis explores how communication assaults on one's dignity may relate to a person's transition from identifying him or herself as temporarily homeless (i.e., rejecting homelessness) to identifying as a homeless person (i.e., embracing homelessness). Specifically, this qualitatative study, based primarily on in-depth interviews with those who are homeless and secondarily on participant observation at a nonprofit organization that serves the homeless in Longmont, Colorado, explores how members of the Longmont community (and larger society) are viewed as treating (in a chiefly verbal sense) Longmont denizens who are homeless, and how this treatment may contribute to chronic homelessness. |
