How to capture the aesthetics, imaginaries, and sensibilities of the ordinary nights of Montreal’s youth
10 October 2022
Nathalie Boucher, Amani Braa and Noah Oder from TRYSPACES have recently participated to the International Conference on Night Studies, that took place in Lisbon, 5-7 october 2022. They presented their recent work on the youth’practice of the night, with the title “How to capture the aesthetics, imaginaries, and sensibilities of the ordinary nights of Montreal’s youth”.
Here is the abstract of their presentation: “Six parks, nearly 500 hours of observation, more than 60 interviews, one question: what do young people aged 15 to 25 do at night in Montreal? While Montreal begins to reflect on nighttime governance and in light of European examples where the night is already well invested by the commercialization of nocturnal hyperactivity, our data collected in the summer of 2020 reveal a third dimension of the night: one in which young people live ordinary and quiet activities, focused on the sensory experience of calm, the search for intimacy (between oneself, in a known territory) and freedom (being oneself, outside the constraints and demands of the day). This presentation focuses on the relevance and difficulties of systematic observation as a necessary complement to the interview in order to shed light on the ordinary and the banal of the urban night of the youth. The authors of this presentation will reflect on the ethnographic experience of the team that participate in that unprecedented study of youth in the urban North-American night. “
Congratulations for this presentation!
