The Complexities of 'Home': Young people 'on the move' and state responses

Abstract

'Home’ invokes ambiguous meanings for social policy; issues of safety within and beyond the home are recurring themes in criminological research and literature as well as policy and practice-based interventions. These concepts are further complicated when consideration is given to the experiences of young people who run away or go missing from the family home or alternative care. Drawing on an extensive body of research and rigorous analysis of ‘home’ in this context, the paper considers how gendered and classed youth identities affect responses and interventions. By ‘problematizing’ the universalised concept of home and the notion of ‘family’ that it implies, this paper makes an original contribution to theoretical aspects of running away and youth journeys, engaging with issues of space, place and relations of exclusion, subordination and domination in relation to family and state powers and responsibilities. Journeys from home are, interchangeably, escape routes and dangerous endeavours, but can also denote acts of resistance and quests for emancipation.