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Dear readers,

We are glad to present you the third newsletter of the PARTISPACE research project. The PARTISPACE newsletter provides an update of the progress in our research and gives some insights into current and upcoming steps of the project. Apart from this, it contains some news from the field of youth participation. This newsletter marks the mid of the project duration. We are still busy with data collection while data analysis has already begun and general analysis in comparative perspective and dissemination activities are getting more and more in sight.

Please spread the word widely among your colleagues and between newsletters, stay tuned via our website, join us on Facebook or Twitter. Your feedback is appreciated on each of these channels.

Many say that young people do not participate enough in society - or not in the right way.

According to the PARTISPACE project this observation starts from a too narrow understanding of participation that does not take into account what is important for young people.

We therefore ask where young people do participate because we think that it may happen in other places than expected by adults and institutions.

We also ask how they participate because we think that there are many other forms than voting, being members of associations or involvement in youth councils.

And we want to understand what participation means for young people. What do they think about official possibilities of participation and what activities are really relevant for them?

 
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Events

4th Partispace consortium meeting in Manchester

From 7th to 11th 2016, the 10 teams of the PARTISPACE project met in Manchester (UK) for the 4th consortium meeting. The objective was first to assess the progress of the research so far and to reflect and prepare the forthcoming steps. Advisory board Members Jill Robinson, visiting Fellow at the Centre for Critical Inquiry into Society at Aston University, Enzo Mingione, sociologist from the University of Milano, Davide Capecchi, Research and Youth Policy Officer at the EU-CoE Youth partnership and Lasse Sjobeck from the Organising Bureau of European School Student Unions (Obessu) also joined the meeting. Their role was providing external feedback regarding the directions taken, the practical relevance of the research process and assisting with regard to the dissemination process.

Read more…
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Meeting with Manchester City Youth Council

On 10th November 2016, some of the PARTISPACE partners met members of the Manchester City Youth Council who are currently involved in the application of the City of Manchester to being the European Youth Capital 2019.

The European Youth Capital (EYC) is a title awarded to a European city for the period of one year, during which it is given the chance to showcase, through a multi-faceted programme, its youth-related cultural, social, political and economic life and development.

The EYC initiative encourages cities to both continue and expand the implementation of new ideas and innovative projects with regard to the active participation of young people in society, and seeks to present a role model for the further development of youth policies in other European municipalities.

Read more...
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PARTISPACE was there…

From 1th December 2016 to 13rd December 2016, Demet Lüküslü and Berrin Osmanoğlu are presenting PARTISPACE research in Eskişehir at the Turkish Sociological Assocation's 8th Congress.

More information on the event here

On the 14th of October 2016, Susanne Liljeholm Hansson from the Gothenburg team led a seminar with a group of professional social workers at the Social Resource Management Unit of the City of Gothenburg with the title Exclusion and Inclusion – Contrasts or Preconditions.

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In August 2016, Barry Percy-Smith participated in the Tallinn Youth Space, Estonia.

This picture show a public space on the edge of the city of Tallinn in Estonia by the waterfront. The setting is a decaying concrete structure built as part of the Olympic Games in 1980. This is a public space but dominated in its use by young people as a place to hang out and chill. This is also a place to meet in the evening before going out in town. According to these young people, the value of this place is just having a place to go and chill without hassle. It is a place to come and think when they have problems and enjoy being by the sea. But it is also a place to just come and meet and find out what’s going on. Is their use of this place like in some way young people having a voice in the city? They don’t think so, just a place to come and chill.

 
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What’s going on in the PARTISPACE field? 

When young people take their difficulties as opportunities

Portrait of  Tandem - mentor for employment; a non-governmental organisation located in Rennes, France.

Tandem, mentor for the employment, was officially created in February 2014. It is a citizens’ response to the socio-professional difficulties of integration met by young graduates. Considered autonomous and sufficiently strong equipped to look for a job, they are however increasingly and often alone facing well-known problems related to unemployment.

Antoine Yon, initiator of the project, and Benoit Connan launched the movement. Concerned about giving a real collective dimension to the project, they were quickly joined by others.

In order to question government authorities and institutions about the situation, Tandem has decided in 2016 to realize a web documentary.

Watch an extract of the subtitled video here

Read more...
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Exploring action-research

Frankfurt “Sprayer” Group

The “sprayers” are an informal group who emerged from the shared youth cultural interest in doing graffiti. Basically, the core group consists of six young men in the age of 20 years up to mid-twenties. All of them are involved in work, apprenticeship or studies and are therefore only able to meet at the weekends. Graffiti is often perceived as vandalism, but for the graffiti sprayers it is a form of participation.

During the field work the group took part in an event called “Jam X”. As they were not allowed to do own Graffitis, they came up with the idea of organizing a “Graffiti Jam” – something like a party with elements of Hip-Hop, Graffiti and self-made Rap. From this, the idea evolved to make a short-movie. In this movie, they want to reflect on their group and its activities in relation to public. Furthermore, it is a possibility to show the society their idea and understanding of graffiti (focusing on styles/tags and not on figures). The intention of the jam was using at as a platform for some recordings and was supported by a young film maker.

Forthcoming publications

Abstract: Young feminists online: political and social participation and feminist activism

McMahon, Gráinne and Batsleer, Janet

There are well-established historical trends that show that new and emerging forms of media are able to disrupt and then transform political and social opinion and discourse and have the capacity to break down social hierarchies in order to challenge dominant socio-cultural and political norms. Social media or “new digital media” are part of this trend and influence a reshape of socio-cultural and political norms, practices and discourses through awareness-raising, activism, and debate.

Recent research has found that social media have considerable potential to engage, empower and activate young women in particular. These online spaces are often women-only and explicitly feminist (‘safe spaces’) and central to political and social activism in terms of women’s rights. The question remains, however, about how that effect evolves, and intersects with more traditional forms of activism, and ‘how and under what conditions these new digital platforms relate to citizen activism and protest politics’ (Valenzuela, 2013, p. 921).

Drawing on historic accounts of women-led spaces and public activism as generative of feminist movement, as well as accounts of contemporary online activism drawn from our current research in Manchester and Ireland, this paper explores how 'safe enough spaces' are mobilised for political and social activism and perspectives on the impacts of such spaces on political and social change.

L. Hope 2016 - young feminists online - abstract.pdf
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The PARTISPACE consortium partners

This project receives funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 649416. The views expressed in this newsletter are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the EClick here to add a title or text.

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