Youth Active Citizenship in Europe

This volume engages with the contested concept of 'active citizenship'. It analysesthe use and understanding of active citizenship in youth civic and political initiativesin the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the UK. Usingethnographic data and insights from the cross-European project CATCH-EyoU, thecontributors to this collection illuminate the experiences of young people takingaction for social change. It does so at a unique moment when a resurgent populistpolitical right is deploying racial prejudice and neoliberal protectionism in bothestablished media and new digital media to fuel xenophobic nationalism. The bookasks a range of questions, including: What is life like for active young citizens withan interest in the civic and political spheres? What practices, relationships andmotivations characterise their participatory movements, organisations, initiativesand groups? The chapters use casestudies to analyse how friendship andemotion, social media, diversity-work, racism, precarity and burnout feed intomotivating and developing or curtailing sustained pro-democratic activism. Youth Active Citizenship in Europe will be of interest to students and scholars acrossa range of disciplines including politics, sociology, education and cultural studies.