Abject Voices from WUF3
Juma Assiago introducing the Safer Cities program on how UN HABITAT relates to urban crime and violence.
Juma: In many cities the exclusion and criminalization of youth has the hallmarks and draws on the tactics of urban warfare. Criminal organizations offer similar opportunities to youth as mainstream institutions. Children and youth, especially those from stigmatized neighbourhoods (favellas), are placed at risk by being targetted as threats. Criminalization of youth is perpetuated via exclusion. This looks to me like the urban version of the Security State.
Drawing in part on Engin Isin’s work and the terminology of Julia Kristeva, in our research on ‘at-risk’ youth in small Canadian cities, in a forthcoming paper Andrea Sharkey and I call youth in this situation ‘abject citizens‘ - not just second class but impossible citizens.