There has been a substantial (re)positioning shift in how young people are engaging with politics and space. Previously identified as being apolitical, apathetic and disengaged from politics in the past, young people have challenged key stereotypes and assumptions about the role they can /should play in formal ‘P’ politics and informal ‘p’ politics. Their ‘in-betweenness’ and interstitial placement between politics and legal structures affords them opportunities to blend and meld politics towards creating time and space for youthful activism and engagement with demands for social justice (Skelton 2010).
When 15-year-old Greta Thunberg began her “SKOLSTREJK FÖR KLIMATET” in 2018 she stimulated a groundswell of connection with other children and young people focused on the global questions of climate crisis and threats to the planet.
How and why do young people develop an awareness of the diversity and range of social and spatial injustice globally and create local political solidarities in order to utilise space and time to build spatial justice?
A key cohort of Singaporean young people aged between 15 and 25 constitute a generation with access to reliable, affordable, ubiquitous Internet and have grown up with considerable awareness and usage of social media, including exploring processes and practices of agency, dissent, and a degree of a protest. In many ways their lives are relatively safe, well-provided for, and comfortable. Yet many of them are frustrated by the ways they are somewhat infantalised and restricted in terms of political identities and practices. Protest in Singapore is difficult but young people are working to challenge the strict controls in order to expose their deep concern about the crises of climate change and the degradation of the planet. I will focus this presentation on Singaporean youth and their responses to being disciplined within their national borders but engaging with geopolitical approaches and understandings.
Mots clés : social justice|youthful politics|representation|activism|protest
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