5/28/2023 0 Comments Youth guidance![]() In this article we are especially interested in how both ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’ for youth ‘at risk’ are produced in these assemblages, by mobilising particular expert knowledge, interventions and particular youth subjectivities. Inspired by Deleuze and Guattari’s ( 1987) concept of assemblage we examined cross-sectoral youth policies and multi-professional actor networks as assemblages in which various professional discourses and social and cultural representations come together (see also Youdell & McGimpsey, 2015). In this article we consider these ‘lines’ of new and emerging assemblages of power, agency and knowledge in the context of youth transitions (see Brunila & Lundahl, 2020 Deleuze & Guattari, 1987 Youdell & McGimpsey, 2015, p. We shall also examine the emerging knowledge and youth subjectivities these policies and networks mobilise in the context of guidance and support aimed at young people considered ‘at risk’. In this article we continue this problematisation and take a closer look at transnational policies and local actor networks. As we have argued elsewhere, youth support systems have a tendency to position young people as ‘vulnerable’, psychologically ‘abnormal’, ‘deficient’ and prone to ‘disaffection’ and delinquency (e.g., Brunila et al., 2019). ![]() Especially those young people belonging to minority groups or labelled as marginal or vulnerable are faced with challenges in getting their interests and experiences heard ( Brunila et al., 2019 Haikkola, 2019 Krinovos, 2019 Masoud, Holm, & Brunila, 2019 Souto, 2020). Our research questions are motivated by findings from previous research on youth studies and youth guidance, which have shown that despite the various guidance and support services on offer for young people in school-to-work transitions there are consistent mismatches between the agendas of these support systems and young people’s interests. While focus has largely been on the professional, institutional and societal aspects of these arrangements, there is room for critical inquiries about the kinds of knowledge, interventions and youth subjectivities collaborative approaches support in tackling the problems and barriers young people face in their transitions. Recent research on inter-professional collaboration has argued that collaborative and tailored approaches are effective in helping young people with complex and multiple needs ( Anvik & Wahldahl, 2018 Helander et al., 2018 McCarter, Maschi, & Morgen, 2014). These policy and funding schemes have supported the establishment of multi-sectoral and public-private partnership, co-operational youth support and guidance mechanisms in Finland and other EU countries ( Määttä, 2019). The European Union has been one of the key orchestrators in transforming youth guidance services to networked and hybrid services (e.g., European Commission, 2009, 2018a, 2018c Määttä, 2019). Over the last two decades education, employment and youth policies have paved the way for multi-actor arrangements and inter-professional efforts to govern youth transitions from school to work and to tackle the ‘complex problems’ faced by young people in transition ( Brunila & Lundahl, 2020 Lundahl & Oloffson, 2014 Youdell & McGimpsey, 2015). Precision guidance focuses on young people’s vulnerability, resilience and future potentiality while leaving societal and structural problems largely unaddressed. Based on our analysis, the new assemblages framing multi-professional guidance and support have given rise to more precise neoliberal governing mechanisms that we have named precision guidance. This article is based on the analysis of interview data produced in the context of an ongoing Academy of Finland project Interrupting Youth Support Systems in the Ethos of Vulnerability (2017–2021) exploring cross-sectoral policies and practices of youth support systems in the ethos of vulnerability. ![]() In this article we were especially interested in seeing which ‘lines’, understood as trajectories of assemblage components, produce both ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’ for seemingly complex life situations of young people considered at risk. Inspired by assemblage theory we looked at local multi-professional youth guidance networks as assemblages consisting of multiple organisations, interests, steering, discourses, and knowledge formations. In this paper, we examined how EU-initiated ‘integrated approach’ to youth social exclusion is manifested in local contexts and in the ways in which youth problems and solutions come to be defined in particular schemes of thought. ![]()
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