Redefining youth: Conflict, connection and solidarity

Journal title WELFARE E ERGONOMIA
Author/s Maria Grazia Gambardella, Sveva Magaraggia
Publishing Year 2024 Issue 2023/2
Language Italian Pages 12 P. 17-28 File size 197 KB
DOI 10.3280/WE2023-002002
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

In Western societies, the processes of transition to adulthood have become highly complicated but, in the case of Italy, they have all the characteristics of a real pathology especially in relation to the economic, social and cultural rifts determined by the effects of the Covid19 pandemic first, and the Russian war in Ukraine later. The authors, however, highlight how young people are able to react, to imple-ment forms of active negotiation towards the social, political and economic dynamics they find themselves experiencing; to express repertoires of creativ-ity to keep the main coordinates of their daily lives under control, taking ad-vantage of the opportunities of the context. This paper contains some of the results that emerged from a qualitative inves-tigation – done between August 2019 and February 2022 as a part of a larger Prin project – on the experiences of young men and young women, aged be-tween 25 and 34, involved in forms of extra-institutional political participa-tion, in different territorial realities. The analysis carried out by the two authors highlights the ways in which young people face great epochal issues, from the fight against inequalities to actions in support of people's dignity, from issues of climate justice to the fight against precarity. And a special focus is reserved to intragenerational and intergenerational relationships.

Keywords: Youth generation; intergenerational relationships; political participation.

  1. Raffini L. (2022). Generazione Covid. Essere giovani durante e dopo la pandemia. Cahiers di Scienze Sociali, 17: 188-202.
  2. Ranci C. (2002). Le nuove disuguaglianze sociali in Italia. Bologna: il Mulino.
  3. Silva J.M. (2012). Constructing Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty. American Sociological Review, 77(4): 505-22. DOI: 10.1177/0003122412449014
  4. Sloam J. (2016). Diversity and Voice: The Political Participation of Young People in the European Union. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 18(3): 521-537. DOI: 10.1177/1369148116647176
  5. Stoker G. (2006). Explaining Political Disenchantment: Finding Pathways to Democratic Renewal. The Political Quarterly, 77(2): 184-194.
  6. Strauss W. and Howe N. (1991). Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069. New York: William Morrow and Company.
  7. Alteri L., Leccardi C. e Raffini L. (2016). Youth and the Reinvention of Politics. New Forms of Participation in the Age of Individualization and Presentification. Partecipazione e Conflitto, 9(3): 717-774.
  8. Alteri L. e Raffini L. (2007). Interesse per la politica e mobilitazione. In: Bontempi M. and Pocaterra R., a cura di, I figli del disincanto. Giovani e partecipazione politica in Europa. Milano: Mondadori.
  9. Tuorto D. (2019). Un voto da riempire. il Mulino, 6: 949-955. DOI: 10.1402/95613
  10. Walther A. (2006). Regimes of youth transitions: Choice, flexibility and security in young people’s experiences across different European contexts. Young, 14(2): 119-39. DOI: 10.1177/11033088060627
  11. Walther A., Lüküslü D.G. and Pais A. (2020). Regimes of Youth Participation? Comparative Analysis of Youth Policies and Participation across European Cities. Young, 29(2): 191-209. DOI: 10.1177/1103308820937550
  12. Woodman D. (2022). Generational change and intergenerational relationships in the context of the asset economy. Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, 23: 55-69.
  13. Woodman D. (2018). Gender and Generations: Using a Generational Framework to Rethink Continuity and Change in the Gender Order. About Gender, 7: 1-25. DOI: 10.15167/2279-5057/AG2018.7.13.500
  14. Wyn J., Lantz S. and Harris A. (2012). Beyond the ‘transitions’ metaphor: Family relations and young people in late Modernity. Journal of Sociology, 48: 3-22. DOI: 10.1177/1440783311408971
  15. Beck U. (1997). SUBPOLITICS: Ecology and the Disintegration of Institutional Power. Organization & Environment, 10(1): 52-65. DOI: 10.1177/0921810697101008
  16. Beck U. and Beck-Gernsheim E. (2002). Individualization. Institutionalized Individualism and its Social and Political Consequences. London-New York: Sage.
  17. Blatterer H. (2007). Coming of Age in Times of Uncertainty. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.
  18. Bosi L. e Zamponi L. (2019). Resistere alla crisi. I percorsi dell’azione sociale diretta. Bologna: il Mulino.
  19. Bourdieu P. (1972). Esquisse d’une théorie de la pratique précedé de trois études d’ethnologie kabile. Paris: Seuil.
  20. Buzzi C. (2013). La transizione in crisi: difficoltà occupazionali e precarietà esistenziale. Quaderni di Sociologia, 62: 149-156.
  21. Cavalli A. e Galland O., editors (1996). Senza fretta di crescere. Napoli: Liguori.
  22. Cordella G. e Masi S.E. (2012). Condizione giovanile e nuovi rischi sociali: quali politiche?. Roma: Carocci.
  23. Cuzzocrea V., Gook B. and Schiermer B. (2021). Forms of collective engagement in youth transition. Amsterdam: Brill.
  24. Dahl V., Amnå V., Banaji S., Landberg M., Šerek J., Ribeiro N., Beilmann M., Pavlopoulos V. and Zani B. (2018). Apathy or alienation? Political passivity among youths across eight European Union countries. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 15(3): 284-301. DOI: 10.1080/17405629.2017.1404985
  25. Della Porta D. and Portos M. (2020). Social Movements in Times of Inequalities: Struggling against Austerity in Europe. Structural Change and Economic Dynamics. 53(C): 116-126.
  26. Fians G. (2023). Prefigurative politics. In: by F. Stein (ed.) The Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Facsimile of the first edition in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology (2022).
  27. Forbrig J. (2005). Revisiting Youth Political Participation. Challenges for Research and Democratic Practice in Europe. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Pub.
  28. Gallino L. (1993). Dizionario di Sociologia. Torino: Utet.
  29. Gardiner S., Grace D. and King C. (2013). Challenging the use of generational segmentation through understanding self-identity. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 31(6): 639-653. DOI: 10.1108/MIP-06-2012-0062
  30. Giugni M. e Grasso M., editors (2021). Youth and Politics in Times of Increasing Inequalities. Cham: Palgrave.
  31. Gobbi L. e Gorgolini L. a cura di, (2020). Giovani e società in Italia tra XX e XXI secolo. Consumi, demografia, genere, istruzione, movimenti migratori, politica. Bologna: il Mulino.
  32. Istituto Toniolo (2020). La condizione giovanile in Italia. Rapporto Giovani 2023. Bologna: il Mulino.
  33. Juris J.S. and Pleyers G.H. (2009). Alter-activism: Emerging cultures of participation among young global justice activists. Journal of youth studies, 12(1): 57-75.
  34. Kelly P., Campbell P., Harrison L. and Hickey C., editors (2018). Young People and the Politics of Outrage and Hope. Boston: Brill.
  35. Livolsi M. (2013). La partecipazione solitaria. In: Bartoletti R. e Faccioli F. a cura di, Comunicazione e civic engagement: media, spazi pubblici e nuovi processi di partecipazione. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
  36. Martuccelli D. (2021). De l’existence, des émotions: deux regards sociologiques. SocietàMutamentoPolitica, 12(24): 25-33.
  37. Martuccelli D. (2017). La Sociologia dell’esistenza. Napoli-Salerno: Orthotes.
  38. Merico M. (2010). Educazione, socializzazione e traiettorie di vita dei giovani. In: AIS (Associazione Italiana di Sociologia), editors. Mosaico Italia. Lo stato del Paese agli inizi del XXI secolo, 131-135. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
  39. Musumeci R. (2020). Vivere un presente precario, sognando un futuro autonomo nell’era della Flexploitation: voci di giovani del Nord e del Sud Italia. Polis, 2: 309-336. DOI: 10.1424/97775
  40. Norris P. (2002). Democratic Phoenix: Reinventing Political Activism. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  41. Paugam S. (2018). Tessere la solidarietà, tra legami fragili e differenze sociali. Aggiornamenti sociali, 1(69): 27-34.
  42. Pirni A. e Raffini L. (2022). Giovani e politica. La reinvenzione del sociale. Milano: Mondadori.
  43. Pitti I. (2022). In the Margins: Young Italians’ Social Participation between Engagement and Inclusion. Politiche Sociali, 1: 15-30. DOI: 10.7389/104071
  44. Pitti I. (2018). Youth and Unconventional Political Engagement. Cham - London: Palgrave MacMillan.
  45. Pitti I. e Tuorto D. (2021). I giovani nella società contemporanea: identità e trasformazioni. Roma: Carocci.
  46. Pleyers G. (2017). The local food movement in Belgium: from prefigurative activism to social innovations. Interface: a journal for and about social movements, 9(1):123-139.

Maria Grazia Gambardella, Sveva Magaraggia, Ridefinirsi giovani: conflitti, connessioni e solidarietà in "WELFARE E ERGONOMIA" 2/2023, pp 17-28, DOI: 10.3280/WE2023-002002