‘Greenbelt or gutter’: youth ‘place-based’ performance and the myth of the suburban/urban divide

Abstract

A youth-created ‘place-based’ performance set in the grounds of their suburban school challenged the myth of the suburban/urban divide that pits the edenic suburb against the dirty and crime-ridden city. Depicting the power relations of a failed utopia, these youth provoked the researcher to embark on further inquiry, analysing other empirical material collected through ethnographic interviews as well as relevant literature regarding the historical roots of the suburb and its association with the impulse to reclaim or recreate the lost Garden of Eden in the New World. Based on the early findings of an ethnography inquiring into youth experiences of schooling in a diverse suburban Toronto secondary school, this research suggests that drama and ‘place-based’ performances created by youth have much to contribute to a reconceptualisation of the contemporary ‘urbanised’ suburb.