Young People and the Politics of Outrage and Hope

In this edited collection we suggest that late in the second decade of the 21st century millions of young people around the globe are marginalised in educational, cultural, social, economic and political contexts that are local and global; that are characterised by increasing wealth and poverty, and a widening gap between them; by the remaking of the markers of marginalisation in which some forms appear to wane while new forms seem to emerge; and by global ruptures that are marked by austerity, recession and the remaking of the welfare state in the aftermath of the GFC.

During the so-called Year of the Protester (Time 2011) we witnessed many young people around the world – the Spanish Indignados, the global Occupy movement, the young people of the various and different revolutions in the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ – voice their anxiety, uncertainty and anger about their experience of these diverse and emerging circumstances.

High levels of youth unemployment and precarious employment, student debt accompanying increased costs for higher education, housing costs that lock many out of home ownership, and the challenges for young people’s physical and mental health and well-being are re-shaping young people’s sense of self and of their chances for meaningful participation in relationships and settings that have, in the past, identified someone as an adult, as a citizen (Kelly 2016).

The collection draws on a range of theoretical, methodological and empirical work to identify, explore, map and debate some of the challenges and opportunities of the politics of outrage and hope that should accompany academic, community and political discussions about the futures that young people will inherit and make.