The ideology of democracy/dictatorship as youth migrate

ABSTRACT

This article is an exploration in the mode of thinking of refugee youth on the relations of ‘democracy’ and ‘dictatorship.’ Tracing the geopolitical relations of authoritarian and democratic forms of governing we demonstrate the manner in which these political forms are socio-historically interdependent yet appear as politically distinct, which we understand as an ideological form of consciousness. Expanding out from interviews and focus groups conducted with refugee youth from the Middle East and North Africa who arrived in Canada to resettle, our analysis attempts to go deeper than that simply creating space for the voices of refugee youth. Instead, we want to theorise from the data to reconceptualise the social and economic projects that have been named as democratisation or youth at-risk. The conscious reproduction of democracy and dictatorship as distinct political forms requires that refugee youth learn to live in and act upon their world through an ideological mode of consciousness that furthers the relations of global capitalism and encourages young people to align their aspirations with neoliberalism. We, therefore, aim to reorient theorisations of democracy and dictatorship, and in doing so, challenge the forms of consciousness and praxis that arise from the bourgeois regime of political rights.

KEYWORDS:

• Authoritarianism
• consciousness
• democracy
• ideology
• Middle East and North Africa
• refugee youth

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

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

Notes

1 Thirty-eight young adults, between the ages of 18 and 35, participated in the research. The data are cited throughout as either interview or group interview.

2 Including organisations such as Scholars at Risk, Talent Beyond Boundaries, and World University Services of Canada, among others.

3 Uneven access to visas and resettlement programmes has resulted in the geographic separation of families.

4 The next stage of the research is being conducted in collaboration with Dr Bahar Biazar, Dr Sara Carpenter, Dr Chandni Desai, and Shirin Haghgou.

Additional information

Funding

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada provided funding for this research.