Youths and Escape Experience in Urban Spaces

In recent years’ urban sociologists and anthropologists have also focused on youth and urban public spaces. On the one hand, there are studies that have proceeded from a criminological point of view and on the other hand, researches that have considered concepts such as marginalization, exclusion or inclusion of social groups in urban spaces. They address issues such as exclusion by official institutions and youth resistance, and raises the question of how young people try to register their signatures on place by adopting strategies such as personalization of place and territorialization in the heart of public spaces. The present study is based on urban ethnography on the pedestrian-only zone of the northern Baradaran Muzaffar of Tehran. The main purpose of this research is to identify different layers’ marginalization strategies by official institutions and local community, which some urban researchers refer to as "place refinement", as well as different strategies of young people to cope, neutralize and resist marginalization. Ethnographic fieldwork shows that the Northern Baradaran Muzaffar pedestrian-only zone is a place for young people to escape the gaze of official institutions. The strategy of exclusion applied by the official institutions and the local community has not been successful and has led to the resistance among the youth.