Creating Space, Creating Self: Street-frequenting Youth in the City and Suburbs

Abstract

Focusing on street-frequenting youth, this paper explores the ways in which young people link spaces and selves in city and suburban environments. In much current youth studies research there is an emphasis on the marginalization of young people, particularly in their use of public spaces. Drawing on space/identity theory, this paper reconceptualizes these issues, highlighting young people's understandings of themselves and the subversive spaces they construct. Through an empirical analysis of the construction of space and self, the paper stresses a need to explore the process of subjective interpretation, undertaken by young people, in order to more sensitively understand the culture of street frequenting.