(Re)writing Identities: Past, Present, and Future Narratives of Young People in Juvenile Detention Facilities

Abstract

ABSTRACTUsing the published work of incarcerated youth in the United States, this paper explores how the youth creatively constructed their past, present, and future identities as students, sons, love partners, siblings, and juvenile offenders. The paper focuses on how writing transgresses the physical boundaries of confinement, while simultaneously reifying the centrality of incarceration as a life-changing experience; an experience had by tens of thousands of young people in the US year after year. An analysis of written work published in the publications of InsideOut Writers, a non-profit organisation that provides creative writing classes to incarcerated youth in Los Angeles County, CA, indicated that many youth engaged themselves as objects of study. More to the point, they studied themselves in: 1) remembered/reconstructed past interactions and/or contexts; 2) (re)constructed present contexts; and in 3) imagined future contexts and interactions with others, including society as a whole. Relying on the literature on social literacy practises and our sociological understanding of the self, reflexivity, abjection, and stigma, we argue that incarcerated youth use their creativity to reflect on their physical confinement and their lives, (re)inscribe their life narratives, and (re)write their past, present, and future selves. The paper closes with our reflection of our three years as volunteer teachers with InsideOut Writers.