Knowing the street

On the production of knowledge between homeless civic actors and their allies in the U.S

Bibliographic Data

ID21422366
AuthorsInbal Leibovits (0000-0002-3082-6482, University of Central Florida, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume53
Issue5
Pages397-417
Publication date2025-09-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Applied Communication Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0090-9882 • E-ISSN: 1479-5752
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00909882.2025.2545938
OpenAlexW4413774030
LanguageEN
References cited56

Focusing on a case study of homeless civic actors and their allies in the U.S., this ethnographic study unpacks allyship as a communicative dynamic, exploring how it both facilitates and constrains knowledge production about policy and social change. Recognizing the value of lived experience in fostering inclusion and improving policymaking, allies to marginalized communities aim to use their privileged positions and expertise to communicatively amplify traditionally overlooked perspectives. Allies contribute their professional and academic knowledge to leverage marginalized community members’ embodied and situated knowledge. However, the structural inequalities inherent in allyship relationships pose significant challenges to the co-production of knowledge. Based on six months of ethnographic fieldwork with homeless civic actors and their allies in a major southern city, this research examines the interpersonal communication practices that shape knowledge production in allyship relationships. The findings illuminate the distinct contributions of homeless experience-based knowledge and allies’ academic and professional expertise. Additionally, the study shows that allies often unintentionally employ communicative strategies – such as conflict aversion and emotional regulation – that prioritize their individual, organizational, and moral perspectives over those of homeless civic actors. The findings emphasize the need for communicative approaches that cultivate a politics of alliance, embracing intergroup differences

Advertising · Business · Civic culture · Democracy · Economics · Knowledge production · Political science · Politics · Production (economics) · Public relations · Sociology · Critical Race Theory in Education · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration

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