Looking Out for the Lads

An examination of the efforts of residents of an urban parish in Cork, Ireland, to deal with various self-identified youth problems, such as unemployment, crime and substance abuse. Looking Out for the Lads is an ethnographic investigation of community development as a strategy for social change--both the potential and limitations of the community action process. There is an effort to link micro- and macro-levels of theoretical analysis; to explore how the actions of local political actors must be interpreted in the light of the omnipresent influence of hegemonic forces that operate to assist, or conversely, contain, control, and obstruct the community development process. In this case study, while the dominant institutions of youth provision (the Catholic Church, the government, and large voluntary organizations) overtly supported the notion of community-based youth services through rhetoric, symbolic imagery, and capital projects, their actions in fact undermined public faith in local level institutions struggling to develop responsive youth services.

Stephen A. Gaetz is a Health Promoter at Shout Clinic, a health centre for street youth in Toronto. His professional and academic training and experience have focused on community development and program planning with regards to youth services in urban settings in Canada and Ireland. From a theoretical perspective this has meant examining the relationship between local-level political processes and broader socio-political forces.