Introduction to Special Section: Youngsters 2: On the Cultures of Children and Youth

The Association for Research in Cultures of Young People (ARCYP) hosted their second Youngsters conference on May 9–12, 2019, at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario—situated on the “Dish With One Spoon Territory” of the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas, and Haudenosaunee peoples. Supported by a SSHRC Connection Grant as well as funds from Ryerson University, the University of Calgary, Simon Fraser University, the University of Winnipeg, and the University of Lethbridge, Youngsters 2: On the Cultures of Children and Youth (2019) was a field-defining event that explored the intersections between childhood and youth studies as interdisciplinary fields of scholarship and community engagement. As conference organizers and ARCYP executive members, we (Naomi Hamer and Erin Spring) hope that this special section of Jeunesse offers a sampling of the cross-disciplinary dialogue around young people’s cultures that emerged at Youngsters 2.

ARCYP’s Youngsters conference constitutes a unique cross-disciplinary event for childhood and youth studies hosted by an association in Canada. While scholars have produced exciting work in the field for decades, that work has found itself positioned most often under the umbrellas of disparate disciplines. Since its inception in 2007, ARCYP reflects a response to these ongoing divisions in the field of childhood and youth studies, and it has aimed to provide innovative and dynamic venues for cross-disciplinary researchers whose work focuses on the lives of young people (See Poyntz, Coulter, and Brisson). ARCYP has worked to define itself as an academic home for researchers whose work is often marginalized to the so-called children’s table of other scholarly associations for research (Duane). The inaugural Youngsters conference took place at Simon Fraser University in October 2016, with President Stuart Poyntz (SFU) at the helm and supported by a cross-Canada committee of organizers. Youngsters 2016 evolved from ARCYP’s commitment as a cross-disciplinary scholarly association focused on the cultures of young people: it aimed

to explore the intersections between childhood and youth studies as interdisciplinary fields of scholarship and community engagement. Drawing together internationally renowned researchers from across the social sciences and humanities, with child- and youth-engaged artists, community groups, and students, Youngsters 2016 offered new sightlines from which to see connections and establish future directions for our work.

(Hamer and Poyntz 14–15)

While the first Youngsters conference addressed issues of precarity, risk, and crisis for young people, this second iteration aimed to grapple with current intersections and debates in child and youth studies, including queer and trans childhoods and Indigenous childhoods—dynamic, community-engaged, and collaborative research that moves across the boundaries of art, literature, activism, and scholarly work. Expanding on the first conference’s vision, Youngsters 2 continued to develop collaborations between various Canadian institutions and international research centres that critically challenge the limits of the field. It featured theoretical and methodological perspectives on

Figure 1.

Event poster from Youngsters 2. Designed by Reg Beatty, Centre for Digital Humanities (Ryerson).

Figure 2.

Youngsters 2 conference bag at the Spadina subway station in Toronto, Canada. Credit: Naomi Hamer.

current trends in child and youth studies related to the themes of 2SLGBTQIA+ childhoods, Indigenous youth, Black girlhood, youth activism, and community-oriented collaborative research. Many of the scholars in attendance care very deeply about decolonizing and queering entrenched institutional discourses and centring voices that have been historically marginalized in academic work on youth and children.

As ARCYP executive members and conference coordinators, we are committed to collaborative and interdisciplinary research and to creating venues for knowledge exchange and community building, especially for graduate students and early career scholars. As conference co-chairs, we were supported before and after the conference by a team of scholars, student research assistants from various institutions, and research centres from across Canada.¹ The conference included conventional panels of paper presentations as well as special roundtables on the key themes of the conference and a participatory workshop on collaborative research. The four-day-long event was...