Youth and Exclusion in Disadvantaged Urban Areas: Case Study of the Quartieri Spagnoli (Spanish Quarter) of Naples
Trends in Social Cohesion No. 9
178 Pages Posted: 23 Jul 2010
Date Written: July, 22 2010
Abstract
The paper describes the everyday lives of young people in the Spanish quarter of Naples. He offers an interpretation of the interplay between various “life spaces” (physical/public, family/private and relational/public), all of which are characterised by a culture of disorganisation and violence, but also by great vitality and by tolerance of incomers who themselves have been marked by their experience of poverty and despair. The Spanish quarter features a huge concentration of deprivation and the community there has a large proportion of jobless citizens and people on minimum guaranteed income. From an early age the young have to harden themselves against disadvantage and take on an adult role. Their desperate need of protection draws them to the sort of figure who rules by fear, and the dearth of self-fulfilment models is compounded by the instability of relationships. The rejection of social norms is reflected in vandalism, educational failure, membership of criminal gangs and so forth. How is any sort of ambition for something better to be fostered in neighbourhoods like that, and how are people to be enabled to form any kind of life project in an environment where people are constantly afraid both individually and collectively?
Keywords: poverty, employment, formal and informal sectors, Europe
JEL Classification: I32, J21, O17, O52
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation