The appropriation of public space by street youth

Abstract

In the light of the results of an empirical study conducted in Morocco on street youth, this article provides a descriptive analysis of the integration process of this group of young people in the public space. Far from addressing the phenomenon of street youth in its tragic social dimension, the article seeks to provide a more targeted sociological perspective for street youth as actors with some freedom of action and choice. These young people do not move into the streets overnight, but they engage in a process that moves through the stages of discovery to temptation and then to integration and ownership. Relying on their social skills, street youth can build their own world in the public space on the margins of society, which makes it possible to transform it into a place of residence, leisure and life. They are thus able to escape the restrictions imposed on them by society and by its various institutions of social control