Becoming Activists: Re/imagining Places of Possibility With Youth

• In Event: Collaborative Arts, Creative Research, and Youth Engagement in Social Justice Practices

Abstract

Objectives: This critical qualitative research took place in Vancouver, BC and focused on a group of young people learning to be activists in a youth-driven social justice organization, “Think Again” (TA). This paper aims to build a conceptual bridge for thinking about how youths’ meaning making practices are socioculturally situated in order to re/imagine alternative places of learning that might generate new possibilities of what might be and who they might be/come.

Theoretical Framework: This study is framed by sociocultural theories of learning and development (Author, 2011; Lave & Wenger, 1991) and critical arts and education practices (Finley, 2018; Gadsden, 2008; New London Group, 1996). Conceptualizing learning as participation in a community of practice prioritizes the situated, dynamic, and relational nature of learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Art, as cultural production, has long been theorized as a powerful means for personal and social transformation (e.g., Eisner, 1998; Greene, 1991). Together these works create a foundation for thinking about the participants as cultural producers and TA as a site for cultural production.

Methods: This study focused on a group of 10 youth that were volunteering with the Youth and Gender Media Project (YGM) at TA. Participants were between 18-32 years old and from a diverse range of social locations. Data generation took place over 8 months, from March to October utilizing the following qualitative methods: in-depth interviews about their experiences and social justice journeys, cultural-artifact elicitation interviews about youths’ creative action projects, cultural artifacts, and participant observations. I conducted an inductive and deductive thematic analysis of the data (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The deductive analysis focused on the ways that youths’ co-constructed knowledge, identities, and values through their participation (Author, 2011). Based upon the themes, and informed by Bruner (1990, 1991) and Ochs (2007), I then created youth “participation narratives.”

Results: The analysis resulted in two interrelated key findings: 1) alternative places of learning, and 2) neoliberal compromises. First, the youth narrated their participation at TA as a moment—a particular place of learning—along their activist trajectories. The youths’ stories entailed powerful metaphors for their activist journeys that converged around the idea that becoming an activist involved a process of embodiment over time and through social relationships and practices. Second, the creative action projects (CAPs) were unstructured and required imagination; youth were given the broad directive to design and implement a creative social action in their community. The CAPs transformed youths’ participation from an opportunity motivated by neoliberal values and goals to a more personal and process-oriented experience.

Significance: The findings revealed the artistic practices as a local site of contestation that generated “politics of possibilities” (Holland & Gómez, 2013) because they were deeply personal, involved risk, and entailed taking action. Finally, youths’ participation narratives illustrate the value of alternative places of learning, such as creative youth activism, for catalyzing youths’ re/imagining of a more socially just world and themselves in and of that world.

Author

• Kristen P. Goessling, The Pennsylvania State University - Brandywine