Abstract
Claims that young people today lack interest in politics are based on conventional definitions of politics and traditional measures of democratic participation, such as voting. However other empirical work shows that many young people are increasingly politically active, but in less institutionalised ways. Using a definition of the political that is more inclusive as it encompasses what many young people themselves consider political, and drawing primarily on 20 in-depth qualitative interviews with young activists in Quebec, this chapter provides a relational framework to distinguish among the variety of forms that young people’s political action may take. By analysing participants’ discourses about their political concerns and the types of actions undertaken, it distinguishes four political stances, which take into account the relationship to State authorities: associative participation, underground protest, politicized artwork, and personal lifestyle.
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Gallant, N. (2018). The ‘Good,’ the ‘Bad’ and the ‘Useless’: Young People’s Political Action Repertoires in Quebec. In: Pickard, S., Bessant, J. (eds) Young People Re-Generating Politics in Times of Crises. Palgrave Studies in Young People and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58250-4_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58250-4_5
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