Search

Academic and popular discourses alike tend to focus on street-involved youth as exemplars of the homeless problem or to overlook them entirely. This discussion aims to move beyond these frameworks, which often fail to acknowledge the talents and agency of street-involved young people, and to engage instead with the unique knowledges that are embedded within their creative endeavours. To do this, this essay places a media analysis of Another Slice, a multimedia website produced on the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, in conversation with interviews with content producers as a means of illuminating the meaningful ways that youth at Directions Youth Services employ multimedia to assert identity, build community, challenge misconceptions about street life, and reimagine physical and social spaces.