‘I mainly look at things on an issue by issue basis’: Reflexivity and phronêsis in young people's political engagements

Abstract

Young people have been characterised as apathetic and disengaged from politics. The discourse of youth apathy has widespread currency in the academy, governments and media. This understanding of young people's relationship with politics assumes a particular, narrow and hegemonic notion of politics originating during the Scottish Enlightenment and relies upon a public/private divide. This definition of politics is used to measure the participation and knowledge of young people and finds them wanting. In contrast, the young people of the present study practice politics in a range of ways drawing upon the permeability of public/private spheres. Moreover, their political practice relies upon reflexivity and phronêsis in a form of ethico-political engagement which politicises morality and everyday life. This study argues that the narrow hegemonic definition of politics is outdated and does not reflect contemporary social conditions and the political repertoire available in late modernity. Nevertheless, there are limitations to ethico-political practice.

Keywords:

• politics
• reflexivity
• young people

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my research participants for their generosity and contribution to this study. Thanks also to Jason Pudsey, Deb King, Mary Holmes and Kathy Edwards for their support of this work.

Notes

1. Questionnaires typically ask questions about signing petitions, joining a political party or writing to a politician (see Bean 1989, McAllister 1997, White et al. 2000).

2. In contrast, Silver (1997) has argued that it is precisely the rise of the impersonal structures of gesellschaft which provides the conditions for these new non-instrumental relationships of private life, such as the modern notion of friendship.

3. All participants’ names have been changed.

4. It seems fair to suggest that Gillian understands much of her activism as part of an ethical/moral practice – she does not see her involvement with anti-war groups as political because they are non-partisan (see Manning 2010), and she connects the environmental benefits of vegetarianism/veganism with morality.

5. Of course, feminist scholarship has been the driving force in rethinking public and private (for a general discussion see Seidman 2008). In the present context, feminist work reconceptualising citizenship is noteworthy (Jones 1990, Chapman 1993, Marshall 1994, Lister 1997, Prokhovnik 1998).

6. Indeed, as Giddens (1991) remarks, the interests of these young people – political consumerism, environmentalism, vegetarianism, feminism – are institutionally repressed by mainstream politics.