Les figures de l’intimité en situation de rue : une pluralité d’expériences chez les jeunes à Montréal
The objective of this study is to understand how street-involved youth in Montreal experience their intimate relationships. Most studies focused on sexual health and HIV infection risks. However, little is known about the meanings they give to their intimate relationships and how they are influenced by the street life. In this study, the relationship between intimate experiences and street experiences of young street-involved people is explored.  Inspired by the sociology of experience (Dubet, 1994), this study focuses on the construction of the intimate experience of street-involved youth, assuming a dynamic relationship between their agency and the social and material conditions of the street life. This analytical framework allows us to overcome the empirical works which present these youth as passive victims of precarious living conditions or as careless and reckless when it comes to sexuality. Individual interviews were conducted with thirty-two street-involved youth (18 women and 14 men) aged from 18 to 27 years old (mean = 22 years old). The testimonies were analyzed within a qualitative typological framework (Schnapper, 2005), allowing the construction of ideal types of intimate experiences in the street life, the “figures of intimacy”.  Five figures of intimacy in the street life among young people were constructed based on the testimonies analysis: criminal success, withdrawal, survival, commitment and confinement. Each of these figures offers a unique dynamic description between intimate experiences and street experiences of the participants. The analysis shows some overlaps between the figures. Youth from the criminal success and the commitment figures build a sense of belonging to a peer group in the street situation, while youth from the withdrawal and survival figures perceived the street situation as disqualifying and try to stay away from other street-involved young people. Also, participants from the criminal success and survival figures reported a subjectivation of the intimate partner through emotional commitment. In contrast, youth in the withdrawal and the commitment figures showed a tendency to instrumentalize sexuality in order to satisfy various needs. This study illustrates the importance of understanding the dynamic between intimate relationships and the street life to capture the diversity and the complexity of the life experiences of the street-involved young people.
Amour Recherche qualitative Street-involved youth Intimacy Love Sexuality Experience Sociology of experience Tactic Qualitative research Typology