Youth in Zurich’s Public Spaces: Hanging Out as an In/Exclusive Way of Taking Their Place in the City

Annamaria Colombo, Claire Balleys, Marc Tadorian and Marianna Colella
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Annamaria Colombo: School of Social Work Fribourg, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HES‐SO), Switzerland
Claire Balleys: School of Social Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland
Marc Tadorian: School of Social Work Fribourg, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HES‐SO), Switzerland
Marianna Colella: School of Social Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Social Inclusion, 2023, vol. 11, issue 3, 93-104

Abstract: Based on the preliminary results of an ongoing research project focused on the social and cultural practices of young people in physical and virtual public spaces across four urban areas in Switzerland, this article explores the everyday spatial behavior of youth who hang out in Zurich’s public spaces. It highlights how everyday activities provide these young people with a means of coming to terms with the inclusive and exclusive potential of the urban public spaces they appropriate and how, in turn, they adopt spatial practices that can prove more or less inclusive. Some of these practices may be provocative or even subversive; and whereas others are more discreet (sometimes involving unconscious behavior or passing unnoticed), we argue that they are no less political. The subtle ways in which young people progressively take their place in the city could best be described as “micropolitical.”

Keywords: adolescence; micropolitics; public spaces; socialization; urban cohabitation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:socinc:v11:y:2023:i:3:p:93-104

DOI: 10.17645/si.v11i3.6782

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