‘Staying active’ in confined living conditions: participation assessments of young asylum seekers (aged 12–23) in the Netherlands†

This article contributes to the critical literature on child participation discussing the positionings of young asylum seekers (aged 12–23) residing in a Dutch asylum centre. It queries participation as an institutional measure, outlining the informants’ perspectives on the creation of a youth council within the confines of an asylum centre. Contradictions and tensions in the wider societal context, in the asylum centre, and in the functioning of the youth council are identified. They demonstrate the gulf between theory and practice in the fulfilment of children's participation rights. The authors scrutinize concepts such as ‘methodological immaturity’, ‘voice’, and ‘recognition’ and argue for the integration of the perceptions and practices of young asylum seekers through dialogue. This can assist in creating an atmosphere conducive to an ethically responsible and meaningful collaboration with young asylum seekers and adapted policy interventions to enhance participation against an on-going backdrop of insecurity, exclusion, and forced inactivity.     

From London to Grenada and Back Again: Youth Exchange Geographies and the Grenadian Revolution, 1979-1983

Through a case study of three educational youth exchanges from London to the Caribbean island of Grenada in the early 1980s, this paper situates decolonisation as a site for youthful agency. Assessing official and ephemeral exchange material held in archives in London and the Caribbean alongside original oral history interviews with key actors, the paper argues that an analysis of youth exchanges as informal education spaces helps bring into focus young people’s agency in decolonisation both as a historical process and conceptual undoing. While the paper asserts that exchanging produced transformative moments of becoming in which young people’s global educational encounters transcended local perceptions of race, it also reveals youth exchanging to a revolutionary nation was no holiday, and that “youth exchange geographies” were governed, predetermined and impeded by the organisational labour of youth workers, fundraising initiatives, and unfolding international politics.     

Using the personal to critique the popular: women’s memories of 1960s youth

Popular memory depicts 1960s young adults as affluent, permissive, promiscuous, delinquent, sub- or counter-cultural rebels. But these stylised images do not reflect the lived experiences of ordinary young adults, particularly young women, in the 1960s. Using Mass Observation and oral history interviews, this article examines how women who were young adults in the 1960s remember their youths and how they negotiate the gap between popular memory and personal experience. It argues that women can readily critique the popular memory of 1960s youth where it does not match their own lived experience. The popular memory is powerful, however, and so still shapes their understanding of the experiences and concepts of youth more generally. Moreover, the way women negotiate between popular and personal memories of youth is conditioned by their attempt to create composure and by subsequent life experiences.     

Navigating Wait Space in Uncertain Times: Young Women and Precarious Labour in Turkey

Despite dramatic increases in university graduates over the last 30 years, unemployment rates among youth with advanced education in Turkey remain some of the highest in the world. With levels of unemployment among university graduates almost equal that of high school graduates, the promise of social mobility and formal waged work that higher education once promised, no longer holds credibility. Many young people, instead find themselves in waithood—a state characterised by uncertainty, joblessness, and obstacles to independent adulthood. Studies tend to view waithood temporally as a period of indeterminacy and frustrated futures, but we argue, waithood also encompasses spatial dimensions that are liberatory in so far as they communicate a demand for a liveable life. Examining how young women in Turkey navigate both the state’s conservative politics, and restricted employment opportunities, we use the term “wait space” to capture what an attentiveness to the intimate connection between space and time and work offers to our understanding of the politics and possibilities of work beyond the wage.     

The ‘youth-fullness’ of youth geographies: ‘coming of age’?

ABSTRACT

The 21st anniversary of Cool Places (Skelton, T., and G. Valentine, eds. 1998. Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures. London: Routledge) provides an opportunity to reflect on the direction of travel in youth geographies and map out future journeys. Here, we argue that scholarship on youth geographies is increasingly dispersed across sub-disciplinary niches of Human Geography. A more conspicuous point of coalescence would be beneficial for the advancement of conceptual and theoretical understandings of youth geographies. It is suggested that the journal Children’s Geographies, offers a meaningful place for the publication of further, dynamic and increased work on youth geographies. To illustrate the exigent research agendas of youth geographies, some exemplars of the ways in which the contemporary lives of young people are being transformed are highlighted. We conclude by asserting that it is an exciting time for researching youth geographies, to grapple with the complex and diverse contested meanings and lived experiences of youth across the Global North and South.     

Twentysomethings and twentagers: subjectivities,spaces and young men at home

This article examines young men's (aged 18–25 years) meanings of home and practices of homemaking, comprising material and social relations. The discussion contributes to three areas of geographical interest: home, masculinities and youth. Both geographies of home and masculinities have begun to consider men's experiences and meanings of home, but young men's domestic practices remain largely unexamined. Geographical work on youth has examined housing transitions, but the gendered experiences of young men need further interrogation. To provide insight into young men's homemaking, this article presents qualitative case studies drawn from fieldwork that investigated relations between masculinities and domesticities in Sydney, Australia. Young men are arguably out-of-place at home in conventional discourses of gender and space, but homes are nevertheless crucial sites for shaping masculine subjectivities. Masculinities and homes are co-constituted through domestic practices, generating diverse intersectional subjectivities and spaces. In this article, three subjectivity-space, or masculine-domestic, relations are discussed, which also counter the centring of heterosexual couple family homes in domestic imaginaries: young men in parental homes, share-housing and ‘alternative’ family homes. I examine similarities and differences across and within these masculine domesticities. This multiplicity of ‘youthful masculine domesticities’ offers a set of qualitative examples for use in public rhetoric that seeks to redress uneven gender dynamics in contemporary domestic life.     

CLAIMING PLACE: THE PRODUCTION OF YOUNG MEN'S STREET MEETING PLACES IN ACCRA, GHANA

This article discusses the social significance of the street to young men through a case study of their street meeting places, 'the bases' in Accra, Ghana. Drawing on field research in a suburb of Accra, the paper explores how such meeting places are produced, claimed and defended. The aim is to contribute to discussions of the relationship between the marginalization of young men in Africa, the appropriation of street space and the production of youth identities. The article illuminates how bases are produced in an urban landscape characterized by rapid change, in which young men are excluded from meaningful work and influence, and tend to be represented as a problem. Describing how these meeting places are interpreted both from the outside and from within, the article illustrates the heterogeneous character of such places and the multiple meanings ascribed to them. While hordes of young men hanging out on the street tend to be viewed by the surrounding world as either potentially dangerous or as a sign of marginalization and immobility, the paper stresses that for the young men themselves, these places are also full of motion and serve to orient their lives socially and materially.     

MARRIAGE-RELATED DECISION-MAKING AND YOUNG WOMEN'S MARITAL RELATIONS AND AGENCY

There is little research that has explored how marriage arrangements, i.e., family-arranged, semi-arranged marriages with some say in spouse selection and self-arranged marriages, affect young women's married life in settings traditionally characterised by arranged marriage. Using data from 13,912 married young women aged 15–24 in India, we explore associations between marriage arrangements and young women's marital relations and agency. Logistic regression analysis shows that women experiencing semi- and self-arranged marriages were more likely than those in family-arranged marriages to communicate and interact with their husband (OR, 1.3–2.8), and exhibit agency in their life (OR, 1.2–2.3); those in semi-arranged marriages were less likely to experience marital violence. These associations were, however, stronger and more consistent among women from southern and western states than in northern and eastern states. Findings call for expanding the discourse on marriage to ensure young people's right to free and full consent in spouse selection.     

Young people's involvement in policy research

This article reviews the legacy of young people's involvement in policy research in the UK and proposes an approach of collaboration with young people that may be useful in other settings. It critiques the sociocultural and socioeconomic context relevant to young people's involvement in research, using the Young Researcher Network (YRN) as a case study. A key benefit of using the YRN has been the ability to identify and analyse potential barriers and facilitators influencing the relationships of young people and organisations whilst both groups worked together to improve policy. This allowed young people to connect to the policy environment in a meaningful way. The approach has been embedded into The Office for the Children's Commissioner in England, the National Institute for Health Research as well as other leading youth organisations in the UK, which is likely to increase the direct involvement of young people in policy research.     

Rural Youth Migration Trends in Australia: an Overview of Recent Trends and Two Inland Case Studies

Much of what has been written on the topic of Australian rural youth migration trends and processes has often proceeded from data‐free, or data‐poor grounds. In this context, this paper analyses recent trends in youth (15 to 24 years of age) migration for a temporally‐consistent set of Statistical Divisions (SDs) in inland rural Australia, and for local government areas within the Northern Tablelands and Slopes and Ranges of northern New South Wales and the Western Australian Central Wheatbelt. The paper finds that rates of youth loss from rural regions have increased over the past twenty years. Yet the patterns, processes, causes and impacts of rural youth migration are distributed in a spatially‐uneven fashion. Some remote areas are receiving net migration gains while booming ‘sea change’ coastal regions have experienced heavy losses. While the ‘flight to the bright city lights’ syndrome is evident, relatively high proportions of young people in the Northern SD of NSW move within their immediate region. Nevertheless, some common understandings concerning youth mobility were also confirmed. Gender differentials in migration propensity between women and men are evident even at quite local scales. Young people are also more likely to search out capital cities than the rest of the population. Most inland areas still continue to experience heavy losses of local youth. A more precise understanding of rural youth migration trends is an important stepping stone in the establishment of a reinvigorated research effort into young rural people's perspectives of their changing life chances in their home communities.     

“Les jeunes des banlieues”: neighborhood effects on the immigrant youth experience in France

This paper explores the impact of the spatial context on populations of immigrant descent in French segregated suburbs, focusing on the youth. The phrase “jeunes des banlieues” (suburban youth) has become a whole concept in itself, capturing the variety of challenges raised—and faced—by immigrant youth in segregated neighborhoods. Our study was a follow-up to the Trajectories and Origins (TeO) Survey conducted by the French National Institute of Demographic Studies from September 2008 to February 2009. It is based on a series of in-depth interviews and a systematic observation survey about the neighborhood. Our results clearly show that neighborhood matters in how young people experience their school system, their interactions with the police, and the way they perceive themselves and their own environment. Outside perceptions of the neighborhood also shape individual and social identities. Overall, high concentrations of immigrants negatively impact the experience of young people of immigrant descent.     

The Women,Peace and Security agenda: Australia and the agency of girls

This article argues that young women and girls are significant stakeholders in peace and security efforts. Understanding their roles, views and capacity is essential to an adequate perspective on peace and security. Yet girls remain the most marginalised group when it comes to peace and security efforts globally. Gender- and age-based hierarchies often leave their interests ignored. Excluding girls hinders prospects for sustainable peace by denying their rights, entrenching inequity and affecting future chances for increasing women's participation. Australian government statements on Women, Peace and Security are evaluated on how they relate to young women and girls. The article presents a series of cases to analyse how young women are impacted by security factors, how they are actively working to create peace and security, and how to better include girls in seeking peace. Options for action by Australian policymakers are discussed.

本文指出,青少年女性是和平与安全努力的重要相关方。正确的和平安全观需要理解这些青少年女性的角色、观点和能力。但全世界但凡涉及和平安全,女孩都是一个最边缘化的群体。性别及年龄的等级制忽视了她们的利益。对女孩的排斥拒绝了她们的权利,强化了不平等,妨碍了妇女未来的参与,这都不利于未来的持久和平。作者评估了澳大利亚政府关于妇女、和平及安全的宣示与青少年女性有多大关系。本文分析了安全因素如何影响年轻女性,青年女性右如何积极致力于创建和平及安全,和平事业该如何吸收女孩等等。作者还讨论了澳大利亚政策制定者的行动选择。     

‘The largest volunteer life saving corps in the world’: centering child caregiving in histories of U.S. human security through the Little Mothers’ League

Abstract

In this article, I explore the relationship between youth, security, and caregiving through a study of the U.S. Little Mothers’ Leagues, an initiative which began in New York City in 1910 with the aim of reducing infant mortality by training young girls to properly care for their infant siblings. Critical approaches to caregiving view security and insecurity as relational, drawing attention to contemporary power arrangements in the global caregiving industry and the contemporary crisis of care. However, in treating children as perpetual care recipients, it fails to provide a robust framework for understanding youth and children in historical and contemporary concerns related to human security. The history of the Little Mothers, largely children of European ‘non-native white’ immigrant families, illustrates the importance of children in securing population-wide well-being and the nation’s status in the global competition to reduce infant mortality. When set in contrast to the eugenics-inspired Mothercraft movement, the case reveals how children and youth become enlisted into projects of national human security, and how their ambiguity as caregivers – too young according to modern childhood, yet effective lifesavers – intersects with race and gender to further obscure their status as caregiving agents     

The performance of youth voice on the airwaves

ABSTRACT

This paper uses the case study of a youth-led community radio station, KCC Live, to argue that community radio is not a cure-all solution for disenfranchised and silenced young people. Drawing on 18 months of participant observation at KCC Live and data from in-depth interviews with volunteers, I argue that, owing to institutional constraints by station management; college management; and the regulatory body Ofcom, young people consider the airwaves to be a supervised, as opposed to emancipatory, arena. However, in attempting to combat the restricting nature of the airwaves, young people find new, performative ways to communicate. This paper provides empirical evidence which goes beyond previous simplistic conceptualisations of voice in youth media production and argues that romanticised notions of youth voice preclude performance and creativity. This paper offers an important contribution to children’s geographies in finding that pretend play, characterised by performance, can be considered a ‘life-span activity’.     

Estate youth and complicated migration in Malaysia's oil palm plantations: the emotions of leaving and connecting back

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the emotional relationship young Tamil Indians have with oil palm plantations they are leaving behind or have left behind. Working in a small town in Malaysia, as well as in a large estate, we show how communal and individual aspirations of migration shape young people's mobility. While young people recognize the poverty and marginalization of plantation life, they continue to be emotionally and affectually connected to plantations through socio-cultural and spiritual practices. Post-migration we show how youth maintain estate connections, and argue that the pull back towards plantations is contrary to state-sponsored ideologies of modernization. Not all young people feel the same pull; many try to distance themselves from their estate roots through consumption and other social practices. Responding to calls for researchers emotions to be present in youth research, the paper also briefly reflects how adult emotions shape our understanding of young people's emotions of migration.     

Contested mobilities: gendered migration pressures among Cambodian youth

This paper explores how gender norms and expectations shape the migration decision-making processes of Cambodian young people, in a community characterized by high levels of migration to Thailand. Based on qualitative fieldwork with migrant and nonmigrant youth, I examine how young people make sense of migration and its local alternatives, and highlight the various gendered pressures that young people, and particularly men, experience for migration. Given the lack of local life-making alternatives that neatly conform to hegemonic masculine ideals, young men experience strong pressures for migration and encounter negative social judgments where they seek to stay put. In contrast, young women experience less forceful migration pressures, perceive meaningful alternative life-making projects in the village, and feel more free to actively resist migration. More generally, my findings highlight the importance of interrogating gendered processes of migration not only in terms of how they affect women and those who choose to migrate but also with consideration to how they affect men, and those who choose – or would prefer – to stay home.     

“死亡之海”里的千纸鹤

女性在沙漠的立足和生存 ,令国内外的许多人不可思议。在塔克拉玛干的石油队伍中却生活着一群活泼可爱的女孩子 ,她们把自己的青春完全留给了大沙漠的石油事业。姑娘们心中都有一只美丽的千纸鹤 ,那是她们时刻准备放飞的石油梦想     

Policing paternity: historicising masculinity and sexuality in early-modern France

In early-modern working communities, masculinity for young lower-rank men was embedded in particular performances and practices of licit intimacy. This essay analyses the specific expectations and parameters for men as well as women through which communities acknowledged and validated expressions of youth sexuality while marking and policing boundaries beyond which youthful courtship could become threatening to household and neighbourhood stability. Young men and women were the focus of these efforts just as they themselves participated in the assessment of appropriate behaviour. These issues suggest an on-going negotiation and contestation about what was appropriate for single men and women in terms of intimacy, and a clear sense that a violation of the community norms carried consequences for men as well as women.     

Introduction: young people,gender and intersectionality

There are close connections between feminist geographies and young people's geographies with their shared interests in challenging inequality, questioning power relations and in conducting ethically sensitive and nuanced research. The introduction to this themed section synthesises some of the key developments in youth geographies and the contributions that feminist geographers have made to this field. Following this, we explore how the articles in this themed section are valuable additions to the evolving body of work on youth, gender and intersectionality.     

Who we are at work: millennial women,everyday inequalities and insecure work

Based on research with millennial women in Canada, this article examines the process of workplace identity, or (un)conscious strategies of identity management that young women employ at work. First, despite increasing labour market participation from women, young women’s experience of the workplace can be one of precarity and insecurity. Many millennial women have responded with a ‘positive front’ – saying yes to all work tasks while highlighting their likability and acceptance of the status quo. This is not seen as a permanent strategy, but rather one that gets you into the workplace and ‘liked’ until your work speaks for itself. Second, and operating at the same time, young women also use tactics to confront intersections of ageism/sexism in the workplace. While some employ conscious strategies to be ‘taken seriously’ through dress, small talk, even taking on stereotypical traits of masculinity to be recognized as competent, others explicitly confront inequality through ‘girlie feminism’ with a pro-femininity work identity that challenges the masculine-coded norms of how a successful workplace operates and what it looks like. In jobs of all types, who we are at work is a constantly shifting negotiation between how we are treated and seen by others, the workplace as a social space, our past experiences and our own expectations. Considering young women’s work identities reveals how power and privilege operate in the workplace, and the possibilities of young women’s agential challenges to inequitable workplace norms and a precarious labour market.