Exploring Youth Place-Belonging in Poor Neighborhoods through Participatory and Visual Methodologies

This paper presents preliminary results of a youth participatory research in progress, which is being conducted in poor neighborhoods of the outskirts of Mexico City. I have been working with adolescents aged 15 to19, on their urban experience using a qualitative and visual methodology. The fieldwork extended for a one year period (from september 2023 to August 2024). During this period, a workshop (14 sessions) of visual-narratives was implemented with a group of 24 adolescents and we produced in collaboration with them 6 short videos (vlogs), about their experiences of the city from the periphery (topics include: urban insecurity, street markets, public spaces for youth, urban mobility, street art). In addition, 18 semi-structured interviews were conducted with other young residents of these same neighborhoods.

Based on this empirical material, I examine in this paper two main topics. First, the construction of place-belonging (Antonsich) among youth from popular sectors. These areas of the city are spaces that are symbolically devalued and stigmatized and are materially precarious and disadvantaged. I explore the emotions and feelings adolescents attach to certain spaces of their everyday urban experiences in this unfavorable context generating some kind of belonging and sense of place. Secondly, I discuss the value of participatory and visual methodologies to work with young people on their own spatial experience -in this case urban experience. This approach and the resulting materials (videos, photographs, etc.) allow us to capture some ethnographic details (the texture) of the everyday life of adolescents (girls and boys) in marginal and subaltern urban area that remain invisible or contempt from the mainstream city. Taking the idea that youth is spatialized (Farrugia), I conclude with some insight on the practices of resistance and integration of youth from disadvantaged urban areas.