Alessandro Martelli, Nicola Da Luigi and Ilaria Pitti have written a chapter based on the data collected within PARTISPACE entitled “New Forms of Solidarity Among and for Young People: An Ethnography of Youth Participation in Italy” for the book “Young People Re-Generating Politics in Times of Crises” edited by Sarah Pickard and Judith Bessant. The book will be out in July for Palgrave.
Here is the abstract of the paper:
New Forms of Solidarity Among and for Young People: An Ethnography of Youth Participation in Italy
Drawing from the findings of the European project ‘Partispace’, this chapter analyses three solidarity initiatives promoted by youth leftist groups in Bologna (Italy). Materials were collected through an ethnographic study that included in-depth interviews with young activists. This material highlights the connections between the initiatives of these groups, their objectives and practices, in the context of the global financial crisis as experienced in Italy. The analysis shows that these initiatives, while seeking to mitigate the problems faced by vulnerable groups (i.e. migrants, refugees, and the homeless), were also fuelled by practices of self-help aimed at responding to the unheeded ‘generational needs’ of the young people themselves. The projects emerge as ‘laboratories of political resistance’ where strategies for collective action based on mutual help and self-empowerment are experimented with and enacted.
More information about the book here