Lost voices : how print media and municipal policy ignore the needs of the inadequately-housed in Calgary, Alberta

Abstract

This thesis discusses the issues that are prioritized in policy documents, and the concerns which appear in newspaper stories, concerning housing issues in Calgary, Alberta. It holds that certain, ‘voices’ are accounted for and accommodated over other, more vulnerable, ‘voices’ in the policy arena. The ways in which these voices are constructed, and how particular agents, subjects, objects, and ‘truths’ are formed, all result from particular uses of language. The thesis maintains that those who have the most to gain from supportive housing policies are often excluded from the process of developing, or commenting on, policy altogether. It also suggests that their discursive construction as objects of policy, as moral examples, or as constituent elements of an “issue,” has implications both for actions undertaken in relation to them by governments and other agencies, and for their own ability to act effectively to articulate and to address their own concerns.