Being Outside and Apart: Impoverished Youths' Relations with Locales

Abstract

The relationships of women and youths, who have both been described in studies on poverty in Turkey as the most disadvantaged groups, to the city and venues has not been adequately addressed. Exclusion from venues, a manifestation of social exclusion, has been said to create many problems in the daily lives of impoverished youths. In this context, the process of spatial exclusion plays an important role in shaping youths' daily lives and their life choices. Impoverished youths' establishment of a relationship with locales needs to be the subject of both poverty and youth researches as a variable. In this study, the process of spatial exclusion for impoverished youths and the problems that this brings has been discussed on the basis of this necessity. In this context, spatial exclusion practices on impoverished youths were evaluated from the data of poverty and youth-related field studies conducted in Turkey. The field research data used in this study was mostly based on qualitative research. This study has concluded that in order to ensure spatial inclusion for impoverished youths who have been excluded from venues and remain apart is the basic approach of the capacity to experience. Experiencing requires being at a venue together with the people who have created it; experiencing requires contact. This experience makes it possible for one to call one's self into being both socially and spatially.