ABSTRACT
In this chapter we shift our attention away from young people’s immediate engagement with risk-taking practices to analyse instead the social context for these. We analyse how risk-taking practices can be an ingrained part of one’s habitus, conditioned by an upbringing in a disadvantaged family, and how specific ‘practices of place’ can be central for one’s sense of belonging. Engaging in these practices does not necessarily happen as a deliberate, reflexive choice but rather because they are highly routinised and normalised practices of place. In the chapter we include a case study to analyse how engagement in risk-taking practices is dynamic over time, and also how it intersects with other practices in everyday lives. We illustrate how, for some of our participants, their risk-taking practices did not only have negative consequences in the present – for instance, missing school – but also potentially for their long-term transition practices.
