Browsing by Author "Kouhia, Anni"

The aim of this study was to explore what kind of demands and condition special youth work offers to the youth workers. The study also considers how young people are positioned in the special youth works practices. The starting point for this study is post-structuralist feminist research and I look at special youth work as an affective practice. Previous research has shown that the ethos of vulnerability has spread to support systems and political guidance for young people both in Finland and in other Western countries. Ethos of vulnerability has been broadly studied from the perspectives of governmentality, but so far has less attention been paid to research on how it guides youth work and sets demands and conditions for being a youth worker. The data consist of autoethnographic memoir, field notes and interviews with young people. I analysed the data using affective-discursive reading. The results of my research showed how the how the ethos of vulnerability in special youth work legitimizes the work, guides youth work and positions the young people participating in the work. In my research, being a youth worker in the field of special youth work appears as the result of affective subjectification, where the personality, freedom, and meaning of work are intertwined with the practices of work, creating ambivalences for working. Special youth work positions itself as employee-centered and the young person is positioned as vulnerable and supported by the youth worker.