Generational Creativity in Contemporary Youth Activism

Youth approach to politics and activism has been increasingly conceptualised in a generational perspective which allows to better identify the impact of the multi-layered continuous waves of “crisis” within the structural dimension of neoliberal politics. Particularly, the generational perspective has proved to be illuminating in the analysis of innovative forms of young people social and political engagement, especially in the relation to the creative responses they are able to elaborate in front of the constraints of the situation, the contingencies of historical events (such as the pandemic outbreak), or the failures of conventional representative politics. Hence, taking into account the generational location of a cohort of young people can add further insights in the comprehension of the creative dimension of youth emancipative politics – today mainly based on mutualistic practices, forms of cooperation in everyday life, self-help, prefigurative political engagement, attempts to come back to the resources of the local territory, reconsidering the common and the use of local networks. This is a generational creativity usually expressed outside the institutional political circuits. In this session, we will be welcoming theoretical reflections and empirical case studies focusing on youth political engagement, in any geographical or cultural area, with a specific focus on the generational standpoint, as possible understanding of creativity, capabilities of translation, improvisation, adaptation and prefiguration of current youth political activism.