CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2016
| Author | Sági, Mirjam Cecilia |
|---|---|
| Title | Youth-space, youth-culture: revisiting taboos around youth sexuality through a case study of a sleepaway summer camp |
| Summary | The present research is drawn from the hypothesis that summer camps (especially sleepaway ones) are potential scenes of sexual self-recognitions and play important role in the way children and young people develop their gender and sexual subjectivity. Through semi-structured interviews conducted with current and earlier youth leaders about the way they negotiate their own sexuality and gender performances among each other and in relation to campers and people higher up in the hierarchy, I will discuss the role of space and locality. I argue that in the temporary context of a summer camp the making of social (sexual / gender) norms are embedded in and particular to their spatial context and therefore it is useful to draw on cultural geography that has been increasingly embracing post-structuralist theories focusing on questions of ‘affect’, ‘emotions’, ‘practice’ and ‘performativity’ (Thrift 2007). I conclude that camps are important to sexual self-recognition simply because they allow more space / time for exploration as well as feelings of freedom encourages experimentation. On the other hand this freedom is also repressive in a sense that sexuality (like in many other youth culture is seen as a definer of status symbol) is encouraged through peer pressure, which has been reinforced through games with sexual connotation (at least until these games were banned). |
| Supervisor | Dr Dorottya Rédai |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2016/sagi_mirjam.pdf |
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