Vulnerability to exploitation: a Bourdieusian investigation among people experiencing homelessness

Abstract

This study asks what shapes vulnerability to exploitation. It builds on evidence that some populations are more vulnerable to exploitation than others, as seen in various policy documents and studies (Lewis et al., 2015; Brotherton, 2019; Heys, 2023). People experiencing homelessness are one such population, yet there is little rigorous evidence regarding the nature of this vulnerability. This thesis produces new insights about the homeless-exploitation nexus, reducing that evidence gap while theorising vulnerability to exploitation more broadly.

It begins by reviewing how vulnerability to exploitation is understood in relevant literature, along with key concepts pertaining to homelessness, work and exploitation, and to victimhood and agency. It shows how insights from those literatures led to the selection of Bourdieu’s “theory of practice” (1977) to structure the study. Twenty-three interviews were conducted with people experiencing homelessness (n=16, 2 interviewed twice) and support workers/key informants (n=5). Migrants with no recourse to public funds were excluded due to the politicisation of exploitation as a ‘migrant issue’ (Kenway, 2021) and the evidence gap for British victims (Heys et al., 2022), resulting in a sample of mostly British people. Two methods of analysis – thematic analysis across the sample and thematic narrative analysis of individual interviews – were used to identify the ways in which Bourdieu’s habitus and capitals shaped people’s vulnerability to, and actual experiences of, exploitation. Interviewees experiencing homelessness had worked in various sectors including begging, busking, car maintenance, cleaning, construction, drug running and sex. 38-50% had experiences commensurate with victimisation under modern slavery and trafficking legislation. Given that the research design did not explicitly seek people already identified as victims and it predominantly interviewed British people, this is a higher prevalence than was expected – statistics on this subject find most victimisation among migrant homeless people rather than nationals (The Passage, 2025). This meta-data suggests that there may be more exploitation occurring among British homeless people than is currently recognised.

The results and discussion theorise interviewees’ vulnerability to exploitation according to the Bourdieusian framework. Specifically, the study shows how habitus type appears to shape vulnerability, and how capitals intersect to produce further differentiations. Three habitus types were identified in the sample: 1) Abdicated self in a fluctuating world; 2) Independent agent in a dog-eat-dog world, and; 3) Morals-based agent in a just world. Type 1 was found to be most vulnerable to exploitation and, indeed, to have the most actual experiences of it too. This offers a potential guideline for practitioners in homelessness services to recognise higher risk clients. Bourdieu’s three capitals (social, economic and cultural) were found to operate in a context of multiple exclusion (Fitzpatrick, Johnsen and White, 2011), presenting in conflicted ways, variously – and sometimes simultaneously – raising or lowering vulnerability to exploitation. For example, on social capital, people were less vulnerable to exploitation due to sharing and loaning practices within social circles, but social connections were also a channel for coercion, deception and control, leading to exploitation. Benefits (economic capital) lowered vulnerability, but this was undermined by costly drug dependencies. Relatedly, and outwith Bourdieu’s classic triad of capitals, this study also finds that the body was an important factor shaping interviewees’ vulnerability to exploitation, particularly where substance dependencies were present. It offers a way to incorporate this corporeal component into Bourdieu’s conventional theoretical framework.

Overall, then, this study offers a theorisation of vulnerability to exploitation as a product of dispositional, structural and bodily factors, while also contributing new evidence to understanding the intersection of homelessness and exploitation. It finds that there are important differences in vulnerability levels among the homeless population which can be identified and understood through a Bourdieusian analysis. Furthermore, by highlighting factors such as access to benefits and substance dependencies, it shifts the focus of exploitation-related policy from a criminal and policing domain towards social and drug policies.