This study will examine how young people in poor urban areas experience and think about their neighborhoods. Prevailing scholarship assumes that such neighborhoods pose serious risks—psychological, physical, social—(Brooks-Gunn et al 1997; Sampsun & Laub 1993; Feins & Shroder 2005; Ginsburg et al 2002); they are “socially toxic,” according to one theoretical tradition (Garbarino 2008), and therefore, according to other theorists, youth in such neighborhoods need to build “resilience” against the dangers that permeate their environment. What is largely missing from such scholarship, however, are the voices of young people themselves. Are they afraid? Do they experience their neighborhoods as hostile and harsh? Are they agents within or subjects of their neighborhoods? For the most part, we do not know.
Therefore, I have offered such youth an opportunity to contribute their own voices to this discussion and allow us to see through their eyes, rather than having the assumptions and conclusions of researchers—whose social location often could not be more distant from their own—imposed upon them. Specifically, I have asked 9 teenagers (13-16 year olds) from two local Boys and Girls Clubs to make photo documentaries of their neighborhoods and then discuss their neighborhoods in a total of three focus groups. The presentation will focus on the photographs themselves, why the participants chose certain locations, and what the pictures convey about the photographer’s perceptions of their neighborhoods.