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Dynamo International, Brussels, 21st May 2017

Work with young women through forms of street work and the role of youth work, street work, social work, and socio-cultural animation

On May 21st 2017, Janet Batsleer was a key note speaker at an event organised by Activist Childcare in Brussels.  The event was organised alongside the organisation for street workers based in Brussels, Dynamo International to launch a new publication: ‘Filles et autre minorise- e-s. Les jeunes commes les autres? Vers un travail de jeunesse accessible à tou-te-s’  Continue reading

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

picture the sprayer group

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.

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