Disrupting gender-related violence through youth work: A feminist new materialist enquiry

Abstract

This thesis explores gender-related violence in youth work settings. Using a critical sociomaterial approach (Murris, 2020), the project investigated how gender-related violence affects young people, youth workers, and youth settings and how youth work disrupts gender-related violence as a form of primary educational prevention (Ellis and Thiara, 2014). The methodology used in this investigation was based on Critical Participatory Action Research (Kemmis et al., 2014). It unfolded in three phases in four youth work settings. Phase 1 focused on identifying gender-related violence and planning youth work interventions to tackle gender-related violence. Phase 2 involved implementing practice changes. During phase 3, these changes were sustained and evaluated. The data collected included critical incidents of practice (Fook and Gardner 2007), in-depth interviews and observations (Kemmis et al., 2014). The analysis comprises a Feminist New Materialist cartographic mapping of gender-related violence-youth work-assemblages. This draws from an ethological approach espoused by Fox and Alldred (2022) and Feely’s (2020) assemblage analysis to identify and describe how the sociomaterial components of the gender-related violence-youth work-assemblage affect one another through processes of de/re/territorialisation (Fox and Alldred, 2022). The findings show that gender-related violence has emotional, material, and social affects that regulate (territorialise) young people, youth workers, youth workplaces, and youth work things. The thesis also demonstrates how youth work that is founded on norm-critical, feminist, and queer pedagogy disrupts gender-related violence by producing opportunities for resistance and change. This thesis, therefore, builds on the GAP WORK Project (Alldred, David et al., 2014, Cooper-Levitan and Alldred, 2022) by demonstrating how youth workers put feminist, queer, and norm-critical praxis into practice. The significance of the vitality of the non-human as part of this critical praxis is illuminated. This is significant for youth work as it challenges the humanist foundations of both research and practice.