Young People’s Activism in Museums: Co-Creating Knowledge for Racial Justice

This paper examines young people’s activism for racial justice during the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter mobilisation. It focuses on a collaborative project involving young people (aged 16-25), curators, academics, and poets, primarily from global majority backgrounds, who engaged in critical anti-racist and decolonial work within a UK museum context from 2020 to 2022. Through reflective workshops and arts-based research, participants reimagined concepts of justice and challenged traditional knowledge hierarchies in cultural institutions. The study investigates how intergenerational and interdisciplinary partnerships create epistemologies that confront 'institutional whiteness' (Ahmed, 2007).

Drawing on the concept of epistepraxis (Cooper et al., 2021), the research analyses how young people-led creative interventions generate new understandings of racial justice and promote justice-oriented futures. Data collected from collaborative workshops and subsequent creative responses demonstrate the potential of arts-based methodologies to produce transformative knowledge and action.

This paper contributes to ongoing discussions about sociology's role in addressing Anthropocene conditions by highlighting the power of young people’s activism in museum spaces. It argues that centring global majority young people's voices and creative expression can push museums to rethink critical engagement with environmental and social justice issues.

The findings suggest that embracing these alternative forms of knowing can equip both sociologists and citizens to navigate the complex intersections of racial, environmental, and intergenerational justice. By supporting such collaborations, museums can reimagine knowledge production that is more just and responsive to the challenges of the Anthropocene.

Ahmed, S. (2007). A phenomenology of whiteness. Feminist Theory, 8(2), 149-168. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700107078139

Cooper, A., Swartz, S., Batan, C. M., & Causa, L. K. (2021). Realigning theory, practice and justice in Global South youth studies. In S. Swartz, A. Cooper, C. M. Batan, & L. K. Causa (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of Global South youth studies (pp. 3-16). Oxford University Press.