Understanding young people's lives through a focus on their micro-geographies has been central for exercising young people's voices through research. However, such a focus has also neglected the multiple and complex realities of growing up that ripple throughout their lives, resulting in calls for more research to go beyond capturing daily snapshots of experience. This paper acknowledges that decades of research with and for young people living on city streets has underpinned activism and challenged western child rights discourse, helping to ensure that abuses and violations of street young people's rights are confronted. Yet, much of this research draws attention to lives lived in present moments – the difficulties encountered and capabilities displayed. It does not account for the temporal fluidity of how young people's realities are future impacted by slow crises and challenging daily life experiences as they grow towards adulthood. This paper explores the crisis temporalities of young people's street lives through a youth-led ethnographic longitudinal approach. The paper focuses on 18 youth researchers and over 200 of their peers' experiences of research over three years while living on the streets of three African cities. The paper discusses the challenges of undertaking longitudinal research alongside the temporal affordances of surviving urban informality and the compounding effects of slow crises on present and future-oriented survival. These affordances emerge as street youth respond to daily trials, experience setbacks, crises, triumphs, and failures, yet show resilience and employ capabilities. The paper concludes by demonstrating the crucial importance of ethnographic longitudinal research for policy and practice to ensure that youth who age on the streets, and their families, are supported in accordance with social justice concerns.

中文翻译：

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在非洲城市街头长大的年轻人生活中的危机暂时性和持续能力：民族志纵向视角

通过关注年轻人的微观地理来了解他们的生活一直是通过研究表达年轻人声音的核心。然而，这样的关注也忽视了成长过程中多重而复杂的现实，这在他们的一生中产生了影响，导致人们呼吁进行更多的研究，而不仅仅是捕捉日常经历的快照。本文承认，数十年来针对城市街道年轻人的研究支撑了激进主义，并对西方儿童权利话语提出了挑战，有助于确保应对虐待和侵犯街头青少年权利的行为。然而，这项研究的大部分内容都吸引了人们对当下生活的关注——遇到的困难和展示的能力。它没有考虑到年轻人在成长过程中未来的现实如何受到缓慢危机和具有挑战性的日常生活经历的影响的时间流动性。本文通过青年主导的民族志纵向方法探讨了年轻人街头生活的危机时间性。该论文重点关注了 18 名青年研究人员和 200 多名同行在三个非洲城市街头生活三年的研究经历。本文讨论了进行纵向研究的挑战，以及幸存的城市非正规性的时间可供性，以及缓慢危机对当前和面向未来的生存的复合影响。当街头青年应对日常考验、经历挫折、危机、胜利和失败时，这些可供性就会出现，同时表现出韧性和运用能力。本文最后论证了民族志纵向研究对于政策和实践的至关重要性，以确保街头老龄化的青年及其家人得到符合社会正义关注的支持。