Young People’s Participation. Группа авторов
people’, Contemporary Politics, 13(2): 165–80, doi: 10.1080/13569770701562658
Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA: Belknap.
Rosa, H. (2013) Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity, New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Saraceno, C. (2006) ‘Poverty and poverty discourses in Italy in comparative perspective’, in M. Petmesidou and C. Papatheodorou (eds) Poverty and Social Deprivation in the Mediterranean, London: Zed Books, pp 95–115.
Sengupta, S. (2019) ‘Protesting climate change, young people take to streets in a global strike’, The New York Times, [online] 20 September. Available from: www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/climate/global-climate-strike.html [Accessed 25 February 2020].
Taru M., Coussée F. and Williamson H. (2014) The History of Youth Work in Europe: Volume 4, Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing.
Thompson, R. (2011) Unfolding Lives: Youth, Gender and Change, Bristol: Policy Press.
Threagold, S. (2017) Youth, Class and Everyday Struggles, New York, NY: Routledge.
Tisdall, E.K.M., Hinton, R., Gadda, A.M. and Butler, U.M. (2014) ‘Introduction: children and young people’s participation in collective decision-making’, in E.K.M. Tisdall, A.M. Gadda and U.M. Butler (eds) Children and Young People’s Participation and its Transformative Potential: Learning from Across Countries, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Walther, A., Batsleer, J., Loncle, P. and Pohl, A. (2020) Young People and the Struggle for Participation: Contested Practices, Power and Pedagogies in Public Spaces, Abingdon: Routledge.
Westwood, J., Larkins, C., Moxon, D., Perry, Y. and Thomas, N. (eds) (2014) Participation, Citizenship and Intergenerational Relations in Children and Young People’s Lives: Children and Adults in Conversation, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Woodman, D. and Bennet, A. (2015) Youth Cultures, Transitions, and Generations: Bridging the Gap in Youth Research, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Woodman, D. and Leccardi, C. (2015) ‘Generations, transitions and culture as practice: a temporal approach to youth studies’, in D. Woodman and A. Bennett (eds) Youth Cultures, Transitions, and Generations: Bridging the Gap in Youth Research, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 56–68.
Woodman, D. and Wyn, J. (2015) Youth and Generation: Rethinking Continuity and Change in the Lives of Young People, London: Sage Publications.
Young people’s experiences of participation and engagement
Cultural activism against inequalities: the experience of Quaderni Urbani in Bologna
Alessio La Terra
Project history
How can an individual play a part in changing the existing order of things? This was the very simple question that, as a young Italian university student, I asked myself, in the years when an unprecedented economic crisis affected the most vulnerable strata of the economy of my country, showing its effects in terms of poverty, social marginality and socio-cultural disorientation. My generation has been named the ‘generation of the crisis’: a cohort psychologically scarred by precariousness experienced as an existential condition and yet aware of having been deviously deprived of the right to freely imagine its own future. The frustration with the institutions that enacted the austerity measures of ‘tears and blood’ that exasperated misery and inequality led many of us to experience feelings of surrender and passivity. However, among others it also stimulated new desires for direct intervention in the emerging social problems and the development of a political conscience no longer supported by ideologies and party structures. Starting from this critical awareness about the present in which I lived, I began to feel a burning need for commitment and the need to practically enact my convictions by going beyond the purely theoretical terrain of my studies. At first, I started to volunteer in some reception centres for migrants, homeless people, drug users and other marginalised groups run by the municipality of Bologna. However, it was only when I met the political collective of Làbas that I found a space of engagement that was compatible with my idea of participation. In Làbas, it was for me finally possible to reconcile my ideas about what political engagement should be with practical actions.
Làbas was born in 2012 from the occupation of a former military barracks that the activists tried to save from degradation and turn into an ‘urban commons’. Within the barracks the political collective had set up a self-managed social shelter for migrants. In an environment ‘immunised’ from any form of racial, religious or cultural discrimination, migrants and asylum seekers were directly involved in the management of the shelter and supported in their strenuous process of social integration. These goals were pursued while trying not to replicate the logics of benevolence and welfarism of institutional services. On the contrary, the organisation of an Italian language school, of occupational workshops, and of events where migration policies and laws were explained were intended as measures to stimulate the direct activation of the hosted migrants on the social problems they were experiencing. These activities were inspired by the mutualistic logic of action adopted by the political collective of Làbas and aimed at promoting a real transformation of society. Alongside these projects aimed at ensuring a dignified reception to migrants, several other projects were developed to raise awareness of the issues of housing and migrant reception and to create a network between the local population of Bologna and the political activities of Làbas.
It took me some time to fully understand the complexity of the political community in which I had landed, but I could immediately recognise and appreciate the real freedom of engagement that was guaranteed to anyone approaching Làbas. Members were, of course, expected to share the basic values of anti-fascism, anti-racism and anti-sexism, but everyone was asked for an effort going beyond their own skills, attitudes and inclinations. This allowed me to put my skills at the service of a cause with which I fully identified. Among the many possibilities of activation existing within Làbas, I chose to channel my efforts into the cultural offer of the space and, together with other activists, I worked for the foundation of the self-managed social library of Làbas, which was created thanks to the donation of thousands of books by private citizens.
Within the library we started to experiment with a form of social activism centred on cultural issues. Indeed, the purpose of the project was not only to open an easily accessible reading room in the city centre nor to just make the procedures for lending books more flexible and less bureaucratic than in other libraries. The deepest intention was to use ‘culture’ as a channel to convey our ethical and political messages: the presentation of a book, the setting up of a photographic exhibition or the screening of a documentary became a means to denounce social injustices or to incite people actively to participate through self-representation and self-organisation.
The library was daily ‘lived’ by the activists and by a diverse population of users (for example, local inhabitants, migrants and students). This fostered the necessity to go beyond the often static and rigid organisational logics of traditional libraries: Làbas’ self-managed library was intended as a meeting spot where occasions of dialogue and exchange of ideas were promoted and where alternative forms to voice our dissent towards institutional approaches to migration and other social issues were explored. Our methods, practices and topics were, hence, already ‘political’ and the political nature of our cultural project emerged even more clearly when it became necessary