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In Their Own Best Interests? Textually Mapping Governmentality in the Lives of Young People without Stable Housing in Canada

Working to untangle the multiple interests and “truths” that manifest in decision-making in youth shelters, I draw on the Foucauldian perspective of governmentality as an alternative means of problematizing “youth homelessness” in Canada. Tracing interdiscursivity between levels of authority, I use critical discourse analysis to deconstruct federal and Ontario government, and Toronto youth shelter discourses. Aiming to normalize the problematic, I uncover tensions between crime control and human resource development within each level of authority. Further, usurping attention to employment and housing, mental illness and youth criminality are taking over as dominant discourses. Moreover, the discursive production of “needy” and “helping” subjectivities is serving to depoliticize and individualize institutionally structured relationships, thereby limiting the depth of citizenship permitted poor, racialized and gendered young people. Concealing ongoing neo-liberal restructuring, therapeutic community-based governance is thus justified over action to address the roots of youth homelessness.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OTU.1807/18997
Date17 February 2010
CreatorsWilson, Tina Esther
ContributorsChambon, Adrienne S.
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
Languageen_ca
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

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