Against all Odds: The Ethnography of Hope among Haitian Youth in Difficult Circumstances

Abstract

Drawing from ethnographic work among Haitian street youth and domestic workers, this chapter explores potential new directions for the ethnographic study of youth in difficult circumstances. In particular, it suggests that hope is a key theme in youth’s lives and that it ought to be explored ethnographically through a lens focusing on cultural practices: that is, on the ways youth actively construct their futures through engagement and agency across time and space. Focusing on the situated cultural practices of youth helps to move the discourse beyond constructs of risk and resilience toward understanding the ways in which youth use actively construct their futures through mobility, personhood, and collective identity.

Citation

Hoffman, D.M. (2016), "Against all Odds: The Ethnography of Hope among Haitian Youth in Difficult Circumstances", New Directions in Educational Ethnography (Studies in Educational Ethnography, Vol. 13), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 15-33. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1529-210X20150000013001