Young activists in political squats. Mixing engagement and leisure

ABSTRACT

The aim of the article is to show that youth involvement in political groups is often driven by such multifaceted motivations that it is relegated to the border between engagement and leisure. Focussing on the European context, research about youth and politics often highlights that few young people are personally involved in political forms of action. In most studies, this involvement is interpreted as the actualisation of a set of values, through their translation into specific aims and means, on the basis of correspondent wider worldviews, that is, representations of society and human beings. Such an interpretative approach is challenged on the basis of the results of research conducted in Italy through qualitative interviews with young activists involved in political squats. Through an in-depth analysis of young activists’ narratives, it is suggested that youth involvement in political groups often represents partly, or even mainly, a form of leisure connected with variegated sensitivities and tastes at least partially external to perspectives of political engagement, and conversely connected with personal satisfaction and fulfilment.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth
• participation
• activism
• politics
• leisure

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. In the following pages the article will use the expression ‘today’s society’ as an emic concept, in order to describe the accounts in activists’ narrations of the social context they feel they act within. Thus, although the boundaries and scale of this context are not objectively or transversally definable, the concept in itself seems to be sufficiently shared among the young activists to be used in the analysis of the interviews.

2. For a comparison between cultural frames and forms of action of Italian activists of political squats and those in other territorial contexts in Europe, see Squatting Europe Kollektive (2013), Cattaneo and Martínez (2014), and Martínez López (2018). Focussing on the Italian context, for a comparison between political squatting and other youth cultures involved in alternative uses of urban space (parkour’s traceurs, skateboarders, and graffiti writers) see Ferrero Camoletto and Genova (2019).

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Notes on contributors

Carlo Genova

Carlo Genova is Associate Professor at the University of Turin, where he teaches Sociology of culture and Lifestyles and urban spaces. His main study interests focus on youth cultures, lifestyles and subcultures theories, social space dynamics. In recent years his main fields of empirical research have been youth cultures in urban space, youth political activism, forms of religious participation.