Young People, Place and Identity / Edition 1

by Peter E. Hopkins

Overview

Young People, Place and Identity offers a series of rich insights into young people's everyday lives. What places do young people engage with on a daily basis? How do they use these places? How do their identities influence these contexts? By working through common-sense understandings of young people's behaviours and the places they occupy, the author seeks to answer these and other questions. In doing so the book challenges and re-shapes understandings of young people's relationships with different places and identities.

The textbook is one of the first books to map out the scales, themes and sites engaged with by young people on a daily basis as they construct their multiple identities. The scales explored here include the body, neighbourhood and community, mobilities and transitions and urban-rural settings and how these all shape and are shaped by young people's identities. Each chapter explores how social identities (such as race, gender, sexuality, class, disability and religion) are constructed within particular contexts and influenced by multiple processes of inclusion and exclusion. These discussions are supported by details of the research methods and ethical issues involved in researching young people's lives. Drawing upon research from a range of contexts, including Europe, North America and Australasia, this book demonstrates the complex ways in which young people creatively shape, contest and resist their engagements with different places and identities. The range of issues, topics and case studies explored include: ethical and methodological issues in youth research; youth subcultures; experiences of home; territorialism; youth and crime; political engagement and participation; responses to global issues; engagements with different institutional contexts; negotiating public space; the transition to adulthood; drinking cultures. The author explores these issues through blending together original empirical research, theory and policy.

Individual chapters are supported by key themes, project ideas and suggested further reading. Details of key authors, journals and research centres and organisations are also included at the end of the book. This textbook will be pertinent for undergraduate and postgraduate students and academic researchers interested in better understanding the relationships between young people, places and identities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415454391
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/28/2010
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Peter Hopkins is a Senior Lecturer in Social Geography in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University, UK. His research interests include: young people’s geographies; religion and place; and urban geographies of race, ethnicity and religion.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations x

List of tables xi

List of boxes xii

Acknowledgements xiv

1 Introduction 1

Young people 2

Identities 5

Place 11

Frameworks for studying young people, place and identity 14

Placing young people 17

How to use this book 20

Part I Researching young people: methods and ethics 25

2 Research with young people 27

Young people's place in research 28

Research methods 34

Data analysis and dissemination 47

3 Ethical and methodological considerations 53

Obtaining informed consent 60

Confidentiality and anonymity 62

Incentivising participation 66

Positionalities and power relations 67

Part II Scales 71

4 The body 73

Youthful bodies 73

Marginalised bodies 77

Subcultural bodies 83

Excessive bodies 86

5 Home 95

Youthful homespaces 95

Experiencing home 99

Without home 102

Leaving home 107

Making home 111

6 Neighbourhood and community 117

Neighbourhoods and communities of youth 118

Neighbourhoods and territorialism 119

Neighbourhoods and poverty 124

Communities and faith 127

Communities and crime 129

7 Nation 135

Youthful nations 135

Youthful national identities 138

National political engagement 143

Beyond nation 149

8 Global 159

Global youth 159

Global events 164

Global lives 168

Global inequalities 173

Part III Themes and sites 179

9 Institutions 181

Young people's institutions 181

Negotiating school 183

Managing university 187

Residential care 193

10 Public space and the street 201

Youthful publics 201

Hanging out 207

Imposing curfews 210

Skateboarding 213

Making public space 214

11 Migrations, mobilities and transitions 223

Youthful migration, mobilities and transitions 223

Fleeing persecution 226

The transition to adulthood 229

The gap year 233

12 Urban-rural 239

Young urban-rural places 239

Leisure places 244

Drinking places 250

Working places 257

13 Conclusion 265

Young people, place and identity 265

Interconnecting scales, themes and sites 266

Multiple frameworks for understanding young people, place and identity 270

Youthful futures 272

Appendix A Key authors 275

Appendix B Journals about young people, place and identity 284

Appendix C Research centres and organisations 286

Bibliography 288

Index 307

Editorial Reviews

"Young People, Place and Identity has bridged the scale gap in youth geographies by bringing us from localized understandings of young people to seeing the productions of youth spaces and identities across regional, national, and global lines. Hopkins' draws from his own and others' research with young people to work out youth perspectives on the construction and meanings of places such as 'home' and 'nation' with rich contextual details and stories from youth, but also links this empirical depth with significant new theoretical understandings that will push the discipline in fresh directions." Meghan Cope, University of Vermont, USA

"A much needed text which will be invaluable for both students and teachers interested in young people’s experience of identity and place. It brings a rich geographical sensibility to the study of young people’s lives and will be highly relevant across the social sciences." Elizabeth A. Gagen, University of Hull, UK

"Peter Hopkins has produced a valuable　book　that responds imaginatively　to the rising interest amongst social scientists in questions of young people, place and identity. It　is ambitious in its theoretical endeavour, broad in its geographic range and novel in its conceptual organisation. I'm sure it will appeal to social geographers and sociologists alike and the clarity of its writing and presentation will make it very popular with students." Professor Robert MacDonald, Teesside University, UK

From the Publisher