Politics of reading: Cultural politics of homelessness

Reading opens up important avenues for political action. Reading is political in the sense that social groups produce and resist, advance and censor readings of key cultural texts, according to their power to do so and their interests in doing so. This paper examines the politics of reading in relation to cultural politics of homelessness. It does so by considering readers and readings of Johnny Go Home (1975), a British television documentary drama about homeless young people, and a cultural text that was open to different readings and political uses. Like many other representations of homeless people, Johnny Go Home revolved around a small number of stereotypes. However, these stereotypes were interpreted and used differently by different readers, according to their power to read and their interests in doing so. Broadly distinct interpretive communities, identified as liberal and conservative, used their respective readings of the programme to advance different solutions to contemporary homelessness. These readings were put to significant legislative use, for they were mobilised in the formal and informal political discourse that culminated in Britain's first direct legislation on behalf of homeless people. More generally, the various readings of Johnny Go Home underline the political significance of the consumption, as well as the production, of representations.