Girls in Deprived Areas

In most Western societies, there are metropolitan neighbourhoods defined as deprived. In the public eye, not least through media reports, descriptions of these areas often revolve around violence and crime, creating a common understanding of these areas as violent and dangerous places, consequently inhabited by violent and dangerous people. At the same time, these are also neighbourhoods where people carry on their everyday lives, a perspective seldom highlighted. Further, this one-sided depiction of deprived areas tends to put boys and young men in focus, excluding girls and young women. In this chapter, we set out to map and discuss research on the meaning of place in the lives of girls in deprived areas. In doing so, we hope to contribute to a more complex and nuanced understanding of what it is like for girls growing up in deprived neighbourhoods today.