Researching Rough Sleepers: Pre-research anxieties for the postgraduate researcher

Homeless people, in particular rough sleepers, are a group who are frequently marginalised and subject to processes of social exclusion (Newburn and Rock, 2005). Although rough sleepers constitute a significant research area for criminologists in the context of post-industrial decline, urban regeneration, and authoritarian policing strategies, there is a surprising dearth of criminological research into fear of crime among the homeless. Indeed, rough sleepers and the homeless in general are more likely to be examined as a causeof fear of crime rather than as subjectto it. In response to this, I am preparing to conduct critical research which seeks to establish levels of fear of crime among rough sleepers in Liverpool city centre, and the impact that Capital of Culture Year (2008) has had, and continues to have, on existing levels of fear. This paper will explore anxieties experienced by a postgraduate researcher in preparing for research with a marginalised, criminalised, and ‘hard to reach’ group. Issues of care of the self will be explored, in terms of both personal security and emotional well-being. Conceptualisations of fear of crime will be explored reflexively, in that the paper will consider the ways in which researchingfear of crime among a marginalised group may cause the researcherto experience fear of crime herself.