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Call for Papers: “This Used to Be My Playground”: Youth Citizenship, Arts Activism and Socio-Politically Inclusive Futures

Date uploaded: October 6, 2014

This Call for Papers for the 6th Nordic Geographers’ Meeting in Tallinn & Tartu, Estonia, on the 15th to the 19th of June 2015, invites scholars from diverse disciplines to engage with arts activism involved in informal social participation of young people (aged approximately 15-25) to voice their opinions and concerns about contemporary society and politics and shape future spaces that are intergenerationally and socio-politically inclusive.

6th Nordic Geographers’ Meeting: Geographical Imagination: Interpretations of Nature, Art and Politics
Tallinn & Tartu, Estonia, 15th to the 19th of June 2015

Session: “This Used to Be My Playground”: Youth Citizenship, Arts Activism and Socio-Politically Inclusive Futures

Convenors:
Dr Martin Zebracki, University of Leeds, UK,
Dr Elen-Maarja Trell, University of Groningen, the Netherlands,

This session invites scholars from diverse disciplines to engage with arts activism (cf. Frostig 2011) involved in informal social participation of young people (aged approximately 15-25) to voice their opinions and concerns about contemporary society and politics and shape future spaces that are intergenerationally and socio-politically inclusive (cf. Barry 2004).

Acknowledging that youth political participation is high on the political agenda across both the Global North and Global South (cf. Ginwright & James 2002; Forbrig 2005; Rheingans & Hollands 2013), the session aims to move beyond the settings of formal-institutional assemblages, voting, petition signing and youth representation in political bodies—as indicators of youth political interest and participation—towards considerations of informal and inclusive cultural youth citizenship and everyday contexts and relations through which alternative forms of participation can arise (cf. Hart 2009; Garrett 2013). This session is conceived as a momentum to look at informal youth arts activism in terms of youth’s everyday artistic (self-)expressions and the ensuing senses of space, citizenship, belonging and meaningful and agonistic encounters in interface with past, present and projected future civic norms and values (cf. Harris et al. 2010; Wood 2014).

Theoretical, methodological and/or empirical contributions drawn from either preliminary or fully-fledged research that critically address young people’s (dis)interests in and (dis)engagements with society and politics through arts practice are sought. These are played out along bodily, home-based, neighbourhood and local community involvement and engagement at co-emerging regional, national and global social levels which can include real, imagined and post-materialist i.e. cyber experiences (cf. Forbig 2005; Rossi 2009; Macnamara 2012). The overall interest for this call is in shaping an understanding of youth citizenship as artistically informed and practiced on a glocal ‘playground’ in a past-contemporary-future spectrum. As such, contributions pursuing social relational, multiscalar and multitemporal approaches to youth arts activism are encouraged.

Overall, this multidisciplinary session aims at providing conceptual, methodological and empirical opportunities to learn about youth arts activism, and a pedagogical window on rendering and possibly advancing research, policy and education on youth citizenship through the intermediating lens of the arts.

Potential topics could include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Ontologies of youth arts activism (cf. Frostig 2011).
  • Youth grassroots arts activism and social and political change and justice (cf. Milbourne 2010; Christens & Dolan 2011).
  • Youth arts activism across intersectionalities of sex, gender, sexuality, class, race, age, religion and ability/disability (cf. Vanderbeck 2007; Brown 2012).
  • Informal and voluntary spaces of artistic expressions vis-à-vis youth citizenship and participation (cf. Neufeind et al. 2013; Wood 2014).
  • Youth participatory social media and virtual arts activism (cf. Macnamara 2012).
  • Actualising young citizens through artistic engagement (cf. Bennet et al. 2009).
  • Youth arts activism and citizenship education and pedagogies (cf. Banks 2008).
  • Potentialities of informal public-art actions in socially inclusive policies (cf. Zebracki 2012).
  • Youth arts activism and well-being (Skinner & Masuda 2013). Arts-informed youth ownership of space (cf. Facer 2012).
  • Artistic protests and boycotting through youth organisations (cf. Ginwright & James 2003).
  • Urban exploration, ‘place-hacking’ and other forms of critical spatial engagement as artistic activism (cf. Garrett 2013).
  • Participatory visual methodologies, video ethnographies and other innovative and artistic methods to capture/facilitate youth participation and activism (cf. Trell & Van Hoven 2010).
  • Ethical and methodological considerations in youth arts activism research (cf. Valentine et al. 2001).

If interested, please send a max. 100-word bio and max. 200-word abstract as separate Word documents to both Dr Martin Zebracki at [email protected] and Dr Elen-Maarja Trell at [email protected] by 20 October, 2014. Selected contributors will then be invited to submit the abstract via the online submission form (for max. 200-word abstracts) at http://www.tlu.ee/en/NGM2015/Conference-information.

There may be potential to explore opportunities for basing a special journal issue on this session. Therefore, in your submission, please also indicate if you would like to contribute to this.

For more information contact Martin Zebracki or Elen-Maarja Trell or click here.