From image to ideology: analysing shifting identity positions of marginalized youth across the cultural sites of video production

In this article, we make visible the ways youth position themselves in and through the cultural sites of video production. Drawing on data from a three-year case study of the multiple literacy practices of youth in an alternative secondary school, we use visual cultural methodology and theories of subject positioning and embodiment to analyse two student-produced videos, illustrating how youth play with multimodal discursive and material resources to inscribe their shifting subject positions. The findings illustrate how otherwise marginalized students negotiate and represent complex, and sometimes contradictory, identity positions tied to both local and larger cultural contexts and ideologies, and suggest new questions and possibilities for multimodal analysis and pedagogy.