Expressions of youth citizenship are evident in young people’s actions, behaviours, and embodied experiences. Young people in late (post) modernity occupy a liminal position when it comes to citizenship. On the one hand, they are conceived of as rights-bearers with particular responsibilities to themselves and others; at the same time, they are presumed to belong to a family unit that will take care of their major interests. Young people with government care experience (henceforth referred to as “youth-in-care”) practice citizenship at an intersection of private and public in their lives as wards of the state. They are expected to belong to foster families of some sort, even though this kind of living situation is often temporary, fragmented, and unsettling. In an era of self-responsibility and rights claims, being unmoored from traditional family life illustrates some of the inherent tensions of practicing citizenship. While youth citizenship literature has proliferated in the last two decades, the focus has often been on rights and responsibilities, rather than the differences in citizenship practices amongst youth themselves. Expressions of citizenship by youth-in-care are contextualized by internal and external factors that shape these young people’s lives. Furthermore, the history, politics, cultural difficulties and social implications of child protection systems have received much attention from academics and policy-makers, but research on youth-in-care as citizens remains rare. This dissertation explores the gap in the literature by looking at the ways that citizenship is complex, multilayered, and fluid for this group of young people. A qualitative research design is used to examine how youth-in-care practice citizenship in their daily lives. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants between the ages of 14-24 in Greater Victoria, all of whom had been in government care at some point in their lives (n= 20). Transcripts were coded using an analytical hierarchy strategy. Findings indicate that the social group in question – youth-in-care – practiced citizenship in a multitude of ways, and that it was important to take situational or social context into consideration when examining how they expressed citizenship. Analysis of participants’ narratives revealed three types of citizenship practices, namely self-responsible citizenship, dissenting citizenship and reluctant citizenship. Expressions of citizenship were navigated through experiences of self-responsibility and rights, belonging and exclusion, and risk and resilience. Citizenship, therefore, is best understood through behaviour and actions, as well as enacted and embodied by participants themselves. For youth-in-care, citizenship practices matter in their relationships with others, the ways they experience belonging and exclusion, and the discourses of resiliency and vulnerability which emerge from their narratives. The dissertation concludes with a consideration of the implications of the findings for the literature on youth citizenship, focusing on the ways that youth citizenship is contextualized by experiences with family, peers, institutions, and the government care system. / Graduate / 0628 / 0626 / 0630 / kbutler@uvic.ca

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-22T17:26:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 jackson.pdf: 1516001 bytes, checksum: ae3c062269e689aebb488e0a8044c9a2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-02-15 / This paper addresses the youth in one of his most dramatic contact with modernity - the penal system. Thus, it approaches with youth has been severely victimized by the passage of the Welfare State to Prisonfare State, existing amidst this transmutation ideology / practice and discourse of correction. Used in Critical Criminology and its theoretical framework, in particular its marginal proposition zaffaroniana realism as a theoretical tool and ethical commitment to deconstruct the juvenile justice system, and also of legal pluralism as a conceptual tool to enable an alternative emancipatory and liberating, so two instruments should intersect theoretical methodological towards a new paradigm of sociability and legality - a critical criminology and legal pluralism way to a democratic legality and non-violent. Besides the theoretical analysis, we work with empirical research conducted through interviews with the inmates in FASE (South Unit) and analysis of records with the aim of seeking the reality of the juvenile justice system since the subjects that are the object of intervention and which was imposed silence. There is talk of youths as locus construction, preservation and recognition of individuals endowed with creative ability and dialoguing with insurgents and emancipatory potential of social dynamics and oppressive legal and an upright position. Advocates up for access to justice as a matter of social policy, understood this from a conceptual extension over and above the traditional public-state sphere and hierarchical / O presente trabalho aborda a juventude em um de seus mais dramáticos contatos com a modernidade o sistema penal. Assim, aborda como a juventude tem sido severamente vitimizada com a passagem do Welfare State ao Prisonfare State, existindo em meio a essa transmutação a ideologia/prática do previdenciarismo penal e o discurso correcionalista. Utiliza-se da Criminologia Crítica e seu arcabouço teórico, em especial a sua proposição zaffaroniana do realismo marginal, como ferramenta teórica e comprometimento ético para desconstruir o sistema penal juvenil, e ainda, do pluralismo jurídico como instrumento conceitual a fim de possibilitar uma alternativa emancipatória e libertadora, por isso, dois instrumentos teórico metodológicos devem se entrecruzar na consecução de um novo paradigma de sociabilidade e juridicidade a criminologia crítica e a pluralismo jurídico a caminho de uma juridicidade democrática e não violenta. Além da análise teórica, trabalha-se com pesquisa empírica realizada mediante entrevistas com os jovens internos na FASE (unidade Sul) e análise de prontuários com o fito de buscar a realidade do sistema penal juvenil desde os sujeitos que são o objeto de intervenção e aos quais foi imposto o silencio. Fala-se de juventudes como lócus de construção, preservação e reconhecimento de indivíduos dotados de capacidade criativa e dialogal com potenciais insurgentes e emancipadores das dinâmicas sociais e jurídicas opressoras e verticalizantes. Propugna-se por um acesso à Justiça como sendo uma questão de política social, esta entendida a partir de um alargamento conceitual e que ultrapasse a tradicional esfera público-estatal e hierarquizante

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