Hybrid Peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Participatory Arts and Youth Activism as Vehicles of Social Change

This article provides an analytical case study of a participatory youth-led filmmaking project in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Using the conceptual framework of hybridity, it critically considers whether and to what extent youth centred, participatory arts projects can facilitate the emergence of a positive hybrid peace. It reflects on three themes—solidarity; creativity as politics; and participation as norm—that speak to the opportunities and challenges encountered during the project. The analysis demonstrates that while participatory arts have the potential to induce a more emancipatory vision of peace, that, and mirroring the warnings from development studies, their effects are not a given and challenges and blockages persist.

Youth Activism for Climate on and Beyond Social media: Insights from FridaysForFuture-Rome

The FridaysForFuture movement (FFF), launched by Greta Thumberg's school strikes in 2018, has led a new wave of climate activism worldwide. Young people are at the forefront, with social media serving both as mobilizing tools and expressive spaces. Drawing upon literature on youth and digital activism with a generational, situated approach, we account for how both the climate struggle and social media are appropriated by FFF-activists as part of their own youth grassroots politics. Moreover, we explore the activities they mix and the strategies they adopt when moving across online and offline environments. From July 2020 to January 2021, we carried out 6 months of ethnographic work with(in) the FFF-Rome group by blending participant observation of assemblies and protests with digital ethnography on the homonym WhatsApp group. Results’ thematic analysis shows that FFF-activists believe climate activism to be their own fight and social media their own battlefield. A generational understanding of digital climate activism emerges at the intersection of the appropriation of the dispute (climate change) and the digital environments (social media). Findings also account for broader logics and strategies adopted by FFF-activists, on and beyond social media. They move seamlessly between online and offline, spanning across and negotiating with different platforms according to political goals and target audiences. These results contribute to overcoming reductive or marginalizing approaches to youth activism, to legitimizing and situating young activists’ social media usage practices within an array of grassroots political practices, and to understanding how generational belonging affects such practices in the Italian context.

Nonviolent youth activism and symbolic violence: Some problems in Bourdieu’s notion of victim complicity

The coupling of victim complicity with violence is intuitively objectionable, yet it is an underexamined aspect of Bourdieu’s ‘symbolic violence’. Within sociology, the nature of violence continues to be debated and refined with contested boundaries particularly concerning non-physical forms of violence. Symbolic violence offers an avenue to investigate this realm; however, it has been both employed and rejected without close examination of the issue of complicity. Moreover, the varying interpretations of Bourdieu’s use of the term ‘violence’ present problems for sustaining sociological distinctions between power and violence. This article examines these issues through the experiences of youth activists employing Nonviolent Direct Action with a focus on their reflexive self-awareness of participation in systems of violence. The author argues that complicity in symbolic violence presents epistemological and ontological problems for the sociology of violence that can be avoided by adopting viable alternative interpretations that emphasise the subject’s reflexivity and the systemic origins of violence.

The Orthodox Dichotomy between the Secular and Islamic Feminisms in Moroccan Young Activists

There has been an ongoing interest in youth activism in recent decades, especially in western countries where youth organizations and associations are very common in schools and colleges. Heather Lewis-Charp et al. confirm that although there is an increasing interest in youth political engagement, there are very few empirical studies on the subject matter (Shawn Ginwright 2006, 22). This lack of research applies to the issue of youth activism and political engagement not just in Morocco, but across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). In the wake of the so-called Arab spring, the focus on youth political engagement and activism grew, given the important role of youth and other marginalized communities – especially women – in protests around the region. In Morocco, a large number of the protesters in the February 20th movement were young people; of these, many were actively associated with feminist organizations and work. This is in contrast to the continued association between feminist activism in Morocco and older generations. This chapter will start by sketching a history of feminist movements and organizations in Morocco and will follow with a discussion of recent activist work by two prominent activists, Zineb Fasiki and Youssef Gherradi.

"Enough Is Enough": A Cultural Turn of Youth Activism in Nepal

On 9 June 2020, most of the national and international media covered the news related to a youth movement organized under the banner "Enough Is Enough" outside the Prime Minister's residence in Nepal. The movement had non-violently resisted the indifference of the government in responding the Covid-19 pandemic. That was completely different from mostly the violent history of youth activism in Nepal, which used to involve in tussling with police, breaking fences, smashing windows, throwing brick and stone, setting a fire, and lightening torches and tires on the street. Disbarring the health protocols regarding the mass gathering, it got momentum and expanded to other urban centers within a week. The protestors appeared enchanting unique slogans, holding creative placards, and singing the national anthem as well as the lyrics of rock and rap music. Observing all, a question emerges concerning the causes behind the shift from the largely practiced aggressive youth movement to the creative, peaceful and musical form of resistance. To respond the question, this study analyzes the purposively selected photos, placards, slogans and music associated to the movement using interpretive approach. Mainly the insights related to popular culture and their associations to politics by Marshall W. Fishwick, John Storey, John Street and Ray B. Browne have been collectively applied as a theoretical framework in the analysis process. As a result, the study has inferred that the integration of popular culture and resistance has altered the movement to non-violence with wider visibility among media and people.