NOMADIC YOUTH CARE

It has been argued that the field of child and youth care is founded on a relationship. Generally, this relationship has been posited as being between two identifiable subjects, a worker and a child or youth. In this paper, I will argue for both a different theoretical framework and significant rethinking of the human individual as the central player in a relation of care. In recent writings on feminist thought, several authors have proposed what they have termed nomadic feminism. This work focuses on developing a theory of the human organism that is no longer centered in a binary with nature. What if we began to see care as an interdependent bringing together of all elements in our environment? What if we began to think consciously about the mingling of human and non-human form as platform for experimentation? What might happen if we broke down the rigid distinctions between staff and youth, neighborhood and agency, male and female, gay and straight, our racial and ethnic identities, not so much to abandon them but so as to open them to experiment, to see what bodies can do together?