We are the UK’s leading publisher of books on Ageing and Gerontology and our titles fill a clear gap in the current literature. The list interrogates the challenges of an ageing population, push forward knowledge and reframe perspectives.
Central to this are the international and comparative works in the Ageing in a Global Context series, published in association with the British Society of Gerontology, and the Longitudinal and Lifecourse Studies journal.
Ageing and Gerontology
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This chapter explores how young people’s responses to the current ecological crisis appear to be reigniting a culture of anti-capitalism and a desire for radical system change. The chapter shows that despite the nuanced political and socio-economic positions that young people arrive at their activism from, there are common threads that tie their social imaginaries together for a future founded on social justice and collective values. Thus, the chapter argues that young people involved in environmental activism present hope that there is an alternative to the structural economic inequality that is further perpetuating the crisis. Their calls for a future beyond capitalism warrant the serious consideration of all adults; politicians, researchers and practitioners alike. This chapter contributes with joy to that goal, aiming to be a conduit for such young people’s voices, and calls on readers to dare to imagine alongside them.
The chapter contributes to rethinking community development from the perspective of young people and sets out the key themes. First, the theoretical sources that are key to the debates and the contested nature of community development are presented. The chapter then draws attention to the incomplete potential of community development to rethink forms of collective action and struggle at the local and global level. In the second section, possible meanings of the key term ‘young’ are considered. In particular, the binary discourse used to describe young people’s democratic promise as opposed to the ‘dangerous’ qualities often assigned to impoverished young people. In the third section, the chapter considers two other key terms together – radical democracy and community development. In the case of the latter, it explores the theorisation of difference as a key aspect, both in terms of generation and in terms of the production of many forms of Otherness, in systems influenced by authoritarian populism and a politics of enmity. Crucially the chapter offers an account of radical democratic practice as a counter to this, drawing on the work of Laclau and Mouffe. Finally, the chapter provides an introduction to all the chapters which form the book.
This chapter explores the gender and sexual citizenship of LGBTQ+ young people. It specifically draws on examples of how digital spaces can act as enablers for young people to create safer and more celebratory community spaces. The chapter outlines a history of societal exclusion, and the contemporary examples of creative and community responses that LGBTQ+ young people have pioneered, turning hardship and discrimination into joy and community. Of particular insight are the ways in which young people lead community development practices and the shift from individualism to collectivism. From these reflections, the authors put forward a new model of practice; Therapeutic Youth and Community Work.
Young people, under the age of 30, living in informal settlements in Kenya face complex and challenging socio-cultural and economic environments. These increasingly include forced displacement, migration, unstable families, violence and mental health problems. Inequities, including those linked to poverty and gender, shape all aspects of adolescent health and wellbeing and these have been exacerbated by responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Young people, as experts in their own lives, are uniquely positioned to provide solutions to their challenges; yet they often remain on the periphery of Kenya’s social, economic and political affairs. They are rarely included in community programming or their role is tokenised, which limits their potential. This chapter contends that a paradigm shift is required, to enable young people to design, implement and evaluate their own programmes. Using the example of a youth organisation in Kenya – Nzumari Africa – the chapter focuses on how youth leadership can create systemic shifts: mobilising young people to challenge the status quo as well as addressing the barriers to their wider participation.
How can young people’s activism help us to rethink community development? This collection explores the critical role that young people are playing in building a more hopeful and democratic future. The book has three aims: to show how a focus on ‘youth’ can contribute to sharpening understandings of community development; to foreground conceptualisations of radical democracy within the rethinking of community development; and to link developments within new youth social movements to the work of youth workers and community development practitioners and thus contribute to rethinking this relationship. The collection includes chapters on the eco movement, the struggles of refugees and the Black Lives Matter movement, and on changing understandings of sexual citizenship, highlighting, above all, emancipatory struggles and gestures of solidarity. Some chapters come from a European context, but they are made more complete and complex by the presence of writers and practitioners whose lives began in the Global South in countries such as India, Kenya and Brazil. The rich accounts counter the individualistic nature of capitalist society and reject the view that there is no alternative. In varying ways, authors present prefigurative practices of hope as an essential element of social movements for rethinking community development. Above all, the book calls for us to act in alliance with young people who are at the forefront of radical democratic practices of community development all over the world.
This chapter contextualises some of the central themes of the book through an in-moment analysis of the Fridays For Future presence at COP26 in Glasgow in November 2021. It highlights the need for adults to be wary of creating heroic narratives of young people involved in environmental action. This chapter is a call to adults working with young people to support them by questioning their own role in reimagining the status quo. It argues that intergenerational solidarity for adults must entail using their knowledge and experience to bolster young people’s self-determination in reimagining the future.
This chapter explores how young activists have developed their agency and intersubjectivity together with migrants in Istanbul since the 2010s. It elaborates an account of the work of ‘thinking actors’ from Hannah Arendt’s phenomenological conceptualisation of politics and citizenship. It offers a perspective on the prefigurative practices of young activists in Istanbul, from the Migrant Kitchen, Migrant Network Forums and Migrant Letters, illuminating how coming into a web of relations at a shared table with migrants generates and enhances the possibility of enacting radical democratic participation. By illustrating the emancipatory and egalitarian potentials within work to erase hierarchies and inequalities between activists and migrants, the chapter also invites us to reckon with the challenges that could impede coalition-building under neoliberalism.
How can young people’s activism help us to rethink community development? This collection explores the critical role that young people are playing in building a more hopeful and democratic future. The book has three aims: to show how a focus on ‘youth’ can contribute to sharpening understandings of community development; to foreground conceptualisations of radical democracy within the rethinking of community development; and to link developments within new youth social movements to the work of youth workers and community development practitioners and thus contribute to rethinking this relationship. The collection includes chapters on the eco movement, the struggles of refugees and the Black Lives Matter movement, and on changing understandings of sexual citizenship, highlighting, above all, emancipatory struggles and gestures of solidarity. Some chapters come from a European context, but they are made more complete and complex by the presence of writers and practitioners whose lives began in the Global South in countries such as India, Kenya and Brazil. The rich accounts counter the individualistic nature of capitalist society and reject the view that there is no alternative. In varying ways, authors present prefigurative practices of hope as an essential element of social movements for rethinking community development. Above all, the book calls for us to act in alliance with young people who are at the forefront of radical democratic practices of community development all over the world.
How can young people’s activism help us to rethink community development? This collection explores the critical role that young people are playing in building a more hopeful and democratic future. The book has three aims: to show how a focus on ‘youth’ can contribute to sharpening understandings of community development; to foreground conceptualisations of radical democracy within the rethinking of community development; and to link developments within new youth social movements to the work of youth workers and community development practitioners and thus contribute to rethinking this relationship. The collection includes chapters on the eco movement, the struggles of refugees and the Black Lives Matter movement, and on changing understandings of sexual citizenship, highlighting, above all, emancipatory struggles and gestures of solidarity. Some chapters come from a European context, but they are made more complete and complex by the presence of writers and practitioners whose lives began in the Global South in countries such as India, Kenya and Brazil. The rich accounts counter the individualistic nature of capitalist society and reject the view that there is no alternative. In varying ways, authors present prefigurative practices of hope as an essential element of social movements for rethinking community development. Above all, the book calls for us to act in alliance with young people who are at the forefront of radical democratic practices of community development all over the world.
Young people are often at the forefront of democratic activism, whether self-organised or supported by youth workers and community development professionals. Focusing on youth activism for greater equality, liberty and mutual care – radical democracy – this timely collection explores the movement’s impacts on community organisations and workers. Essays from the Global North and Global South cover the Black Lives Matter movement, environmental activism and the struggles of refugees.
At a time of huge global challenges, youth participation is a dynamic lens through which all community development scholars and participants can rethink their approaches.
