Attending to Attachment and Anxiety in the Development of Youth Urban Citizenship in Toronto Through Drama-Based Research

• In Event: Youth Stories as Counternarrative in Educational Research

Abstract

How do young people develop ‘urban citizenship’ in the ever-growing city? This research focuses on the possibilities of using drama as a pedagogy and methodology for attending to youth's ‘right to the city’ at a time of aggressive urban change. This paper draws from a doctoral ethnography situated in a low-income urban middle school in a Toronto neighbourhood experiencing rapid development and rising housing costs. Using a vital materialist frame of analysis, and Ash Amin’s concept of ‘urban feelings,’ the paper examines how youth ‘become’ urban citizens according to their material, affective and emotional entanglements with the city. Autobiographical performance is harnessed as a ‘metho-pedagogical’ tool to explore how urban feelings shape young people’s political subjectivities.

Author

• Christine Balt, University of Toronto