Paper short abstract:

Based on in-depths case studies with houseless and incarcerated people in Leipzig Germany, this paper analyses confinement as the inability to care for another in contexts of imprisonment (spatial) and of livelihoods that are confined along multiple axes of identity (ontolgical).

Paper long abstract:

In Germany, overall reform led to retreating, outsourcing and fragmentation of public services and welfare whereas prisons main justification, rehabilitation' leads services to still be concentrated there. In this paper, I use in-depths ethnographic case studies of rough sleepers who move in and out of prison in Leipzig, Germany to show the extent to which German society has individualised social suffering in its attempts to responsibilise those under their governance (Crain, nY) and to improvise safety and security (De Giorgi, 2006). I will examine examine the consequences of changes in the nature of the democratic contract away from a focus on care (on the side of states) towards one of responsibility (on the side of citizens) (see e.g. Aretz, 2019; Daigneault, 2014; Schneider, 2020a; Schneider, 2021). This responsibilisation leads affected people to be unable to care for others socially, financially and legally. At the same time, houseless people are frequently imprisoned for minor offences and fines they are unable to pay. The construction of both confined lifelihoods and prisons as 'a kind of moral space which tags inhabitants as unethical and immoral people' (Ugelvik 2012: 273) can lead confined people to feel abandoned, unwanted and uncared for by society and its members in both spaces though in different ways. This paper analyses confinement as the inability to care for another and to be cared-for in contexts of imprisonment (spatial) and of livelihoods that are confined along multiple axes of identity (ontolgical).