'This is our home': young residents' representations of Melbourne's public housing towers during 'hard lockdown'

On 4 July 2020, in response to a developing 'second wave' of COVID-19 cases, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced that a hard lockdown would be immediately implemented in nine public housing towers in Melbourne, Australia. Approximately 500 police were dispatched to implement this lo...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of youth studies 2023-05, Vol.26 (5), p.559-576
Main Authors: O'Keeffe, Patrick, Daley, Kathryn
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
COVID-19
Mass media images
place and belonging
place-based narratives
Public housing
Public housing estates
Residents
Social media
Social networks
Stigma
Tenants
territorial stigmatisation
Youth
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:On 4 July 2020, in response to a developing 'second wave' of COVID-19 cases, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced that a hard lockdown would be immediately implemented in nine public housing towers in Melbourne, Australia. Approximately 500 police were dispatched to implement this lockdown, with residents prevented from leaving their buildings. Over the next fortnight, young residents in these towers, often from socially- and economically-marginalised communities, emerged as advocates for their fellow tenants, using various social media platforms to broadcast their experiences. In this article, we analyse social media posts published by 28 social media users throughout June and July of 2020, which reported on the experiences of people living within the public housing towers during the hard lockdown. We draw on the concept of territorial stigmatisation tounderstand and frame how a traditionally stigmatised physical space is reclaimed via a digital medium. We explore the potential for young people to use social media to challenge territorial stigmatisation and construct alternate representations of place and community.
ISSN:1367-6261
1469-9680
DOI:10.1080/13676261.2021.2022111