Scales of community and solidarity in the global age: Le role of collective activism in shaping identities among (national minority) youth

This paper seeks to reassert the role that others play in youth identity construction, by focusing on collective political experience.

Much research attention has been directed recently to the individualization of identity construction processes. This stems both from theoretical standpoints (defining identity as a reflective and subjective construction) and from an undeniable explosion in the varieties and multiplicity of identities among youth.

However, this focus on singularity overshadows the crucial role that others play in this reflexive construction; yet, the identity process is fundamentally interactive (most notably in the form of identity ascription, identity strategies, or the circulation of imagery and social representations of identity groups). Drawing on over 20 in-depth qualitative interviews with politically active youth in Quebec (a French-language national minority) engaged in global issues, this paper explores two dimensions of the interplay between collective experience and identity construction.

Firstly, identity seems best defined as a sense of belonging to one or a small set of collective entities (which the individual deems important and characteristic of whom he/she is). Such entities may be of different types and scales, but they are all made of people who share some form of meaningful attributes or traits (cultural codes, practices, mentality, history, language, etc.). Hence, identity seems deeply intertwined with sense of community and, perhaps, solidarity. We will thus explore how different scales of collective belonging are articulated together in the discourse of young global activists who are part of a strong nationalistic minority group.

Secondly, by distinguishing four overlapping modes of activism among youth today, we will show how the two more collective forms of activism (organisational/institutionalised; underground/subcultural) shape senses of collective belonging differently and more concretely than the two more solitary modes of activism (expressive/artistic; personal practices), which tend to sustain more singular identities and abstract senses of solidarity.