Youth power in precarious times : reimagining civic participation /

Youth power in precarious times : reimagining civic participation /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Brough, Melissa, 1979- author.
Imprint:	Durham : Duke University Press, 2020. ©2020
Description:	x, 206 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Language:	English
Subject:	Youth -- Political activity -- Colombia -- Medellín. Digital media -- Social aspects -- Colombia -- Medellín. Mass media and youth -- Colombia -- Medellín. Communication -- Political aspects -- Colombia -- Medellín. Social media -- Colombia -- Medellín. Communication -- Political aspects. Digital media -- Social aspects. Mass media and youth. Social media. Youth -- Political activity. Colombia -- Medellín.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/12409522

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9781478007708 1478007702 9781478008071 1478008075 9781478009085
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	"YOUTH POWER IN PRECARIOUS TIMES considers municipal and activist efforts to promote civic participation and technological innovation in Medellín, Colombia, a city known for a history of violence and narcotrafficking, where youth had been experiencing increasing political and economic disenfranchisement. "Participation" has become a mainstream technique of commodification in digital culture, as youth are encouraged to interact with commercialized social media and ad campaigns. But Melissa Brough seeks to distinguish simple digital interactions of this sort from truly engaged political participation, with the potential to reshape public life and relations of power. By following the story of a youth-led hip hop activist collective and other youth-led initiatives, Brough shows how the combination of grassroots tactics and digital technologies can open up space for youth participation in local politics, from participatory budgeting to citizen media. Brough shows that successfully generating youth participation requires ecologies of artistic and grassroots engagement, not simply open digital and media technologies. The book's first chapter demonstrates that cultivating a participatory public culture that values the voices of non-hegemonic groups requires lowering barriers to participation, developing youth skills and capacity to participate, and creating spaces and cultures of participation. The next chapter contrasts two projects, Medellín Digital, an e-government services portal, and Ciudad Comuna, a multimedia communication collective, to show that digital communication can enhance or improve processes of participation only if digital technologies are integrated with attention to their local context. Brough then turns to La Red de Hip Hop La Elite and Son Bataí, an Afro-Colombian youth collective, both youth-run cultural organizations that gained social capital and had to negotiate sometimes conflictual, sometimes collaborative relationships with local governments. Their tactics of reterritorialization-reclaiming public space with dance and graffiti-as well as their reliance on participatory leadership, popular education, mentorship, and support for individual free expression provide a roadmap for successfully promoting a culture of nonviolence and engagement among marginalized youth. Finally, the book turns to Medellín's institutional participatory budgeting process to show how it catalyzed public debate and opened up civil polyculture in a way that effectively empowered marginalized groups"--
Other form:	Online version: Brough, Melissa, 1979- Youth power in precarious times Durham : Duke University Press, 2020. 9781478009085

Description
Summary:	Does youth participation hold the potential to change entrenched systems of power and to reshape civic life? In Youth Power in Precarious Times Melissa Brough examines how the city of Medellín, Colombia, offers a model of civic transformation forged in the wake of violence and repression. She responds to a pressing contradiction in the world at large, where youth political participation has become a means of commodifying digital culture amid the ongoing disenfranchisement of youth globally. Brough focuses on how young people's civic participation online and in the streets in Medellín was central to the city's transformation from having the world's highest homicide rates in the early 1990s to being known for its urban renaissance by the 2010s. Seeking to distinguish commercialized digital interactions from genuine political participation, Brough uses Medellín's experiences with youth participation--ranging from digital citizenship initiatives to the voices of community media to the beats of hip-hop culture--to show how young people can be at the forefront of fostering ecologies of artistic and grassroots engagement in order to reshape civic life.
Physical Description:	x, 206 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Bibliography:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:	9781478007708 1478007702 9781478008071 1478008075 9781478009085