In english
Alternative Spaces: Youth Stories of the Future is an action research project for and with youth (12 – 21 years old) living in cities. The project is led by researchers from the Work Research Institute AFI at OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, Landscape Architect Jenny Osuldsen from NMBU and Snøhetta. It is a co-joined effort of anthropologists, artists and architects to experiment within a disciplinary framework. The aim is to increase youth’s well-being and enhance the participation and influence of youth on policymaking in cities. To explore ways of engaging youth in urban development, we have relied on both traditional and exploratory ethnographic methods. Researchers participating in the Alternative Spaces project have conducted fieldwork and participant observation in a variety of settings and with different groups of youth in and around Oslo. Additionally, artist Nina Vestby has worked with the Alternative Spaces project in New York, where she has done a workshop with young students at the High school Morris Academy for Collaborative Studies in Bronx. Vestby will be in New York until September 2018, where she continues to arrange workshops. Visit her blog to learn more about her work.
As anthropologists, we have found that our abilities to connect with, engage, and produce knowledge about youth through ethnographic approaches are expanded and strengthened through collaborations with other fields of knowledge. While art-based methods for sense making seem to produce fruitful pedagogical connections in various interactions with youth, the emphasis that architects place on the materiality of the urban landscape provides a valuable physical perspective on the spaces that the youth in question inhabit. We argue that bringing these different approaches together in our work with youth involvement in urban development has brought something extra to the table in terms of how we engage and connect with the youth we encounter.
One of our most central innovations is what we refer to as a SPLOT analysis (Space, People, Learning, Observation, Track), a tool inspired by initial interactions with youth. Through simple techniques of drawing, the tool allows participants to explore their sense of (be)longing to multiple places and also provides the link between personal feelings and experiences and more structural factors and challenges in society. The youth have become participants in our research through different channels, such as collaborations with local schools and municipal youth programs.