Vulnerability, Uncertainty and Loss amongst Young People in Areas of

Deprivation in the UK

Giselle Vincett, Betsy Olson, Peter Hopkins, Rachel Pain and Eduardo

Serafin.

‘Marginalised Spiritualities’• Based in two areas of social and economic

deprivation in the UK: south Glasgow and East Manchester

• Individual interviews with community stakeholders (faith leaders, elders, service providers) and young people (aged 15-25)

• Ethnographic fieldwork, especially at youth groups and detached street-based work

Instability, Vulnerability and Loss• Deprivation (variously experienced)• Death and illness• Prejudice and harrassment (age, class, racial/ethnic)• Personal insecurity• Isolation• Homelessness/insecure households (regeneration included)• Substance abuse• Violence (gang/team fighting, war, familial)• Prison and crime• Suicide, self-harm• Financial and Work Instabilities (underground economies)• Family instabilities/loss, (break-ups, ‘care’, young mothers, abuse or

neglect)• Fear• Lack of opportunities (work, skill development, access to education, etc.)

Religion and God

• Starting point: how does religion traditionally function in people’s everyday lives?

• Some evidence to suggest that churchgoing helps with resilience or misfortune management, but evidence is also good for other supportive groups—turning lives around

• God—personal, interventionist• When God fails, negative interventions,

dismissal of God/faith

Life Experiences and Class Differences

• Collins-Mayo: how does religion function in the lives of young people: immanent faith, ‘bedroom spirituality’, control and order

• Common experience and regularity of misfortune—almost banal

• Managing instability/uncertainty—process mediated through social fabric of understanding—values, power, personhood (Whyte 1997)

The body and the material• Often the most obvious sites of reflection of

uncertainty and vulnerability • Deprivation, vulnerability and uncertainty and the

body– representations and expressions (knife scars, clothing choices, litanies of gun or knife crime stories, even who has had babies)

• Religious mediation or management of uncertainty or vulnerability often expressed through body or the material—eg. Rosary, graveyards, Guardian angels, ghosts

• Power and agency—or lack thereof• The body/the material as stable categories?—

churches, death, disfigurement