Understanding risk in the everyday identity-work of young people on the East Rand

D.Litt. et Phil. (Sociology)Inquiry that seeks to understand young people’s engagement in risk behaviours is numerous. Concern for and interest in young people has stimulated a wide range of debates about what makes young people do the things they do. Despite the plethora of research in this area there are still gaps in our knowledge, primarily because much of the research has sought to understand young people by looking at their decision making from the outside. This study departs from what has gone before by applying a youth development approach to understanding youth risk. In order to do so it sought to delve into the worlds and lives of a few young people living in an informal settlement in Gauteng, South Africa. The key question that the study poses pertains to how young people understand and negotiate risk as an aspect of their everyday identity-work. It is thus important to note that youth in this study is not understood simply as a particular age range or a phase that exists between childhood and adulthood. Rather it is understood as a life stage that carries with it particular experiences, needs and processes. In particular for the purposes of this study identity-work is understood to be an intensive process during the life stage of youth that involves drawing on culturally and socially available labels (McCall, 2003), definitions and markers of identity and testing them in their social networks in a process of reflexivity towards developing a self-identity (Giddens, 1991). In order to generate a deep understanding of the lives and worlds of young people, this study employed a critical ethnographic design, combining the usual methods of ethnography such as observation and interviews, with innovative methods that sought to challenge commonly held perceptions of research that young people might have had, and to encourage them to participate in the research. The study found that risk is understood in multiple ways. Young people understand and internalise the risk prevention messaging that is often targeted at them but they also have other perceptions of risk that ‘experts’ tend to overlook. Most important of these were their perceptions of risk that were influenced by their socio-economic surroundings – risks that were foremost in their lives because of their day-to-day struggles to manage them. The study also demonstrates the ways in which risk is negotiated as a feature of identity-work in three ways – in identity-work that has to do with masculinity and femininity, in identity-work pertaining to who one is within a family, and in identity work that involves their roles in the community. One of the main recommendations arising from this research is the need for integrated interventions that combine the prevention models that are currently employed, with locally specific interventions aimed at enhancing the protection and preparedness of young people in order to reduce their vulnerability. By conceptualising young people and the phase of ‘youth’ differently, and applying a youth development approach to understanding youth risk, it is hoped that an innovative way of considering how young people make decisions regarding risk has been opened for future consideration in research