Doctoral Dissertation Research: Youth Homelessness: Street Kids in the Urban South

无家可归的青少年：据估计，南部城市lgbtq青少年中的街头儿童至少占美国无家可归青年人口的40%，尽管他们只占美国青年人口的5- 8%。通过访谈和民族志实地调查，本研究考察了LGBTQ是如何成为无家可归者的，他们的特殊需求，以及他们作为LGBTQ和无家可归者与其他人群的互动。通过揭露影响LGBTQ无家可归青年的日常经历和独特问题，该项目将研究贫困背景下的性别和性行为如何影响年轻人如何成为和经历无家可归。这项研究还为LGBTQ人群的文献增加了一个新的空间背景——南方城市。“新无家可归者”是贫困和收入不平等加剧的明显标志，这是随着社会的新自由主义经济重组而出现的。很少有研究探讨边缘化LGBTQ人群的更大的社会力量如何也可能导致新的无家可归，特别是新的青年无家可归。这一差距尤其重要，因为无家可归的LGBTQ青年不成比例地构成了美国无家可归的青年人口。在一个无家可归的青年救助中心和一个LGBTQ青年无家可归收容所进行人种学田野调查时，本研究询问了当今与青年无家可归、性别和性行为相关的特定过程。与大多数关于LGBTQ生活的研究发生在东北部、西海岸和中西部相比，这项研究发生在一个南部州，那里对LGBTQ公民权利的看法不那么有利，并且在工作场所、住房或其他住宿方面缺乏对LGBTQ人群的保护。缺乏对LGBTQ和低收入人群的支持，为研究南方城市的青年无家可归、性别和性行为提供了一个未被充分审视的社会和经济环境。

Youth Homelessness: Street Kids in the Urban SouthLGBTQ youth are estimated to make up at least 40 percent of the youth homeless population in the United States, despite being only about 5-8 percent of the U.S. youth population. In conducting interviews and ethnographic field research, this study examines how LGBTQ become homeless, their specific needs, and their interactions with other people as being both LGBTQ and homeless. Through uncovering the day-to-day experiences and distinct issues affecting LGBTQ homeless youth, this project will examine how gender and sexuality within the contexts of poverty affect how young people become and experience homelessness. This research also adds a new spatial context - the urban South - to the literature on LGBTQ people more generally. The "new homelessness" is a visible marker of the poverty and growing income inequality that has followed the neoliberal economic re-structuring of society. Little research examines how larger social forces that marginalize LGBTQ people may also contribute to the new homelessness, in particular, the new youth homelessness. This gap is especially critical because LGBTQ homeless youth disproportionately make up the youth homeless population in the United States. In conducting ethnographic fieldwork at a homeless youth drop-in center and at a LGBTQ youth homeless shelter, this study asks about the particular processes associated with youth homelessness, gender, and sexuality today. Compared to the Northeast, West coast, and Midwest where most studies on LGBTQ life take place, this study occurs in a Southern state where there are less favorable views of LGBTQ civil rights, and a lack of protections for LGBTQ people in the workplace, in housing, or in other accommodations. This lack of support for LGBTQ and low-income people provides an under-examined, social and economic climate in which to study youth homelessness, gender and sexuality in the urban South.