Full Description
Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives, Youth, Place and Theories of Belonging showcases cutting-edge empirical research on young people's lifeworlds. The scholars demonstrate that belonging is personal, infused with individual and collective histories as well as interwoven with conceptions of place. In studying how young people adapt to social change the research highlights the plurality of belonging, as well as its temporal and fleeting nature.
In the field of youth studies, we have seen a recent emphasis on studying the ways youth live out everyday multiculturalisms in an increasingly globalised world. How young people negotiate belonging in everyday life and how they come to understand their positions in fragmented societies remain emerging areas of scholarship. Composed of twelve chapters, the collection references key sites and institutions in young people's lives such as schools, community/cultural centres, neighbourhoods and spaces of consumption. Drawing from diverse areas such as the rural, the urban as well as displacements and mobilities, this international collection enhances our understanding of the theories employed in the study of youth identity practices.
Written in a direct and clear style, this collection of essays will be of interest to researchers working in geography, theories of affect, gender, mobility, performativities, and theories of space/place. Investigating how young people come to belong can open up new spaces and provide critical insights into young people's identities.
Contents
1. Introduction: investigating youth and belonging
2. Expanding theoretical boundaries from youth transitions to belonging and new materiality
3. Surveillance, belonging and community spaces for young people from refugee backgrounds in Australia
4. Queering Timmies: theorising LGBTQ youth claiming and making space in Surrey, BC, Canada
5. 'Adults decided our fate': children and young people navigating space, territory and conflicting identities and the 'new' Northern Ireland
6. Travel imaginaries of youth in New York City: history, ethnicity and the politics of mobility
7. Women, spatial scales and belonging: signalling inequality in Latin America
8. Brotherhood and belonging: creating pedagogic spaces for positive discourses of Aboriginal youth
9. Belonging without believing? Making space for marginal masculinities at the Young Men's Christian Association in the United Kingdom and The Gambia
10. Precarious class positions in Spam City: youth, place and class in the 'missing middle'
11. Arenas of empowerment? Case study of a 'multicultural' high school in Oslo, Norway
12. Local and refugee youth in rural Australia: negotiating intercultural relationships and belonging in rural places
13. Politics of class and belonging in Pakistan: student learning, communities of practice and social mobility
14. Conclusion: youth and belonging: agency, place and negotiation
