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We’re on the Same Boat”: Organization, Practices, and the Time-Space of the Poorest Class in the Czech Republic

Growing up in a small Czech town in 90s, I became aware early on of the visibility and stigma surrounding homelessness—even in provincial contexts—and this experience profoundly shaped my academic trajectory. In 2013, I earned a PhD in Ethnology from the University of West Bohemia. My dissertation, “We’re on the Same Boat”: Organization, Practices, and the Time-Space of the Poorest Class in the Czech Republic, was based on a three-year ethnographic study of unhoused people in the city of Pilsen. It explored classical anthropological themes—social organization, economic practices, and temporal and spatial arrangements—within the context of post-socialist urban transformation. The findings culminated in several publications as well as my comprehensive mixed-methods monograph.

Monograph

Vašát, Petr. 2021. Na jedné lodi. Globalizace a bezdomovectví v českém městě (In the same boat. Globalisation and homelessness in a Czech city). Prague: Academia, 356 pages. ISBN 978-80-200-3200-3.

  

The monograph is an interdisciplinary and multimethodological study of homelessness in Czechia. The author explores how homelessness in Czechia materializes at the intersection of political-economic factors, such as the democratization of society or integration into the global economy, and the specific accompanying logics arising from the encounters of street culture and certain conditions characteristic of Czech society. Relying on a case study of Pilsen and comparing it with certain elements of homelessness in the United States and informal settlements in Latin America, he argues that homelessness is not an exclusion from society as generally perceived by the public as well as experts, but a systemic component of current cities.

Papers

Vašát, Petr. 2014. "Předevčírem, nebo kdy to bylo?" Temporalita třídy nejchudších. Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review 50 (1): 57–82, https://doi.org/10.13060/00380288.2014.50.1.34.

Vašát, Petr. 2013. "Sme na jedný lodi": Morálka a morální ekonomie v kontextu chudoby a marginalizace. Český lid: Etnologický časopis / Ethnological Journal 100 (4): 427–448.

Vašát, Petr. 2012. Studium bezdomovectví v USA: Inspirace pro výzkum v České republice. Český lid: Etnologický časopis / Ethnological Journal 99 (2): 129–149.

Vašát, Petr. 2012. Mezi rezistencí a adaptací: Každodenní praxe třídy nejchudších. Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review 48 (2): 247–282.

© 2026 by Petr Vašát

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