People going through homelessness in the contemporary U.S. struggle with a number of dehumanizing challenges. Even as some attempt to secure employment and end their homelessness, they may run into difficulties because they have been Othered to such a significant level. They have effectively been left out of society because of their lack of participation in its dominant activity as prescribed by market fundamentalism, the creation and exchange of goods. The following thesis seeks to explore the experience of homelessness for those within a homeless shelter environment in an economic-focused society. It utilizes Midrash Social Research Methodology (MSRM) to focus on the voice of the person going through homelessness, the marginalized Other. It relies on the phenomenology of the 20th-Century philosopher Emmanuel Levinas in an effort to explore the meaning and knowledge to be found in conversations held with the Other. The goal of this thesis is to propose a purposeful refocusing on service through conversation. The issue of homelessness is multi-faceted and its causes are as diverse as the people who experience it. Service providers in particular must engage those being Othered, and they must provide support in ways that allow for pluralistic realities, not prescribing singular means of ending homelessness.

Africa is misrepresented and mis-imaged in the western media. Because of this, notions and beliefs about atrocities that take place on the continent lack context, leaving people to think that Africa is a place of misery, darkness and despair; a monolithic land where evil resides. The image of Africa as the "heart of darkness" was conjured following the Joseph Conrad novel and the idea of Africa as the "Dark Continent" still pervades Western thought. This is an inadequate understanding of Africa, and lacks the context to comprehend why many of the atrocities in Africa occur. I will explore two atrocities in Africa, the 1994 Rwanda Genocide and child slavery on Lake Volta in Ghana. I believe that both these examples reflect how the label of evil is insufficient to describe the circumstances around each atrocity. In order to understand such events we must understand the part that colonialism and poverty play in the disruption of pan-African culture. The "evils" of these two phenomenon, are in many cases the result of the Western world's past involvement in Africa and are remnants and extensions of the disruption caused.