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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sociol.
Sec. Gender, Sex and Sexualities
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2024.1436979
This article is part of the Research Topic Masculinities, Empathy, Care, and Non-Violence View all 4 articles

"I stayed on the street, as if there was no COVID-19": enacting practices of care with youth at risk of violence and social exclusion in Portugal

Provisionally accepted
Patrícia Ferreira Patrícia Ferreira 1,2*
  • 1 Center for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
  • 2 Patrícia Ferreira, Coimbra, Portugal

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, a world of carelessness was made visible. Public health guidelines against the spread of COVID-19 (e.g., school closures, staying home, social distancing) have substantially affected youth's health and well-being and highlighted the need for contextspecific understandings of infection, risk, and care.Our research aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the impacts of COVID-19 on boys and girls serving educational measures and placed in the custody of the juvenile justice system in Portugal during the pandemic.Sustained by the use of ethnographic principles and methods along with participatory techniques, this article uncovers complex entanglements between the public health measures to mitigate contagion and the dynamics that exacerbated socio-spatial dynamics of social exclusion and isolation, educational and (mental) health inequities, and lived and practiced forms of violence by youth-serving tutelary measures in Portugal's six educational centers Following Tronto's feminist ethical-political proposal of care, I argue that COVID-19 became a lens to access youth care needs -self-care, care for others, care as essential work of nurturing affective trajectories and solidarities and promoting positive and non-violent relationships. By caring for youth stories, the engagement of researchers and professionals in this action-oriented research aimed to promote the enactment of practices of care with youth in the Portuguese detention centers as a way to positively affect theirinhabited present, promote healthier lives and nurture the construction of caring and non-violent post-pandemic futures.

    Keywords: COVID-19, care, Violence, Youth, Portugal

    Received: 22 May 2024; Accepted: 11 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Ferreira. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Patrícia Ferreira, Center for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.