Heading for a better world: micropolitical activism of young people seeking social change

ABSTRACT

The article explores young people’s expressions of political activism as a combination of the participation and agency of young people reflecting, in particular on the ethical and emotional dimensions of their social involvement. The findings are based on ethnographic research carried out with three groups of young people (the Autonomists in Germany, the No-TAV in Italy and the Not In Our Town in Slovakia) who are actively engaged in responding to the social conflict they experience or perceive. The article is based on the analysis of 61 semi-structured interviews employing a meta-ethnographic synthesis approach. The findings show that stigmatisation and conflict with authority and the perception of social injustice motivate the young people to engage actively in society and create alternative lifestyles and communities on the principles of solidarity, equality and mutual respect. A sense of community and solidarity emerges as both a stimulus and an outcome of young people’s social involvement and demonstrate the centrality to their engagement of its ethical and emotional dimensions. The authors suggest that relatively new forms of political activism may be understood as a cumulation of micro-political practices driven by individual constellations of ethical and moral issues rather than by traditional, ideologically oriented political structures.

KEYWORDS:

• Young activists
• alternative lifestyles
• social injustice
• agency
• micro-political practices
• ethics of participation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Hereafter, citations from activists are attributed using a pseudonym and these case study acronyms.

2 The [removed] approved the research for Germany [removed], for Italy [removed] and the [removed] for Slovakia [removed].

3 Using a shared set of axial level codes to facilitate the cross-case synthesis was employed here. The detailed case studies, their findings and methodological details of the individual cases, including researcher-research participant relations, positionality and ethical issues, and information about the respondents can be found in the full reports on each case at: [removed].

4 Topics that were mentioned as important by respondents during the empirical phase of the studies were (amongst others): global and local environmental issues, discriminatory practices of authorities and their representatives, racism, police brutality and surveillance, populist right-wing discourses, right-wing extremism, anti-Semitism, the situation of refugees, feminism, masculinity, gender roles and gender equality, gentrification, youth policies, foreign policies related to Israel, community practices in Lebanon, alternative society models, communism.

5 However, it inhibits activism where the personal risk is so great that individuals feel silenced, criminalised or their personal safety is endangered (see above).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by H2020 Society [grant number 693221].