The Art of Governing Youth: Empowerment, Protagonism, and Citizen Participation
This article discusses social inclusion policies for youth from vulnerable socioeconomic contexts, based on the ethnographic monitoring of an associative experience promoted by the Choices Programme (“Programa Escolhas”) on the outskirts of Lisbon. Considered the main public policy directed at poor,...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Cogitatio
2022-04-01
|
| Series: | Social Inclusion |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/5080 |
| _version_ | 1818506331999436800 |
|---|---|
| author | Otávio Raposo |
| author_facet | Otávio Raposo |
| author_sort | Otávio Raposo |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This article discusses social inclusion policies for youth from vulnerable socioeconomic contexts, based on the ethnographic monitoring of an associative experience promoted by the Choices Programme (“Programa Escolhas”) on the outskirts of Lisbon. Considered the main public policy directed at poor, racialised, and peripheral youth in Portugal, the Choices Programme is driven by strategies of empowerment and protagonism with a view to engaging youngsters in resolving the problems faced in the neighbourhoods in which they live. Both strategies call for citizen participation but restrict the youth’s field of political action to the rules drawn up by the state, discouraging emancipatory and subversive discourse. The result is biopolitical control and management of marginalised youth, masking a domination that has domesticated their collective action. By recreating the meetings and activities that sought to inspire in these youngsters the virtues of associativism, I discuss how the discourses of empowerment and protagonism are incorporated as new devices of agency and community governmentality. In particular, I question the limits of citizen participation as a means to stimulate the political engagement of youth when this is tied to individualist ideologies distant from a grammar of rights. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-10T22:03:07Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-3e6abb60c4084830aba844a87ac490fc |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2183-2803 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-10T22:03:07Z |
| publishDate | 2022-04-01 |
| publisher | Cogitatio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Social Inclusion |
| spelling | doaj.art-3e6abb60c4084830aba844a87ac490fc2022-12-22T01:31:51ZengCogitatioSocial Inclusion2183-28032022-04-011029510510.17645/si.v10i2.50802463The Art of Governing Youth: Empowerment, Protagonism, and Citizen ParticipationOtávio Raposo0Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology, University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE‐IUL), PortugalThis article discusses social inclusion policies for youth from vulnerable socioeconomic contexts, based on the ethnographic monitoring of an associative experience promoted by the Choices Programme (“Programa Escolhas”) on the outskirts of Lisbon. Considered the main public policy directed at poor, racialised, and peripheral youth in Portugal, the Choices Programme is driven by strategies of empowerment and protagonism with a view to engaging youngsters in resolving the problems faced in the neighbourhoods in which they live. Both strategies call for citizen participation but restrict the youth’s field of political action to the rules drawn up by the state, discouraging emancipatory and subversive discourse. The result is biopolitical control and management of marginalised youth, masking a domination that has domesticated their collective action. By recreating the meetings and activities that sought to inspire in these youngsters the virtues of associativism, I discuss how the discourses of empowerment and protagonism are incorporated as new devices of agency and community governmentality. In particular, I question the limits of citizen participation as a means to stimulate the political engagement of youth when this is tied to individualist ideologies distant from a grammar of rights.https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/5080citizen participationempowermentoutskirtsprograma escolhaspublic policysocial inclusionyouth |
| spellingShingle | Otávio Raposo The Art of Governing Youth: Empowerment, Protagonism, and Citizen Participation Social Inclusion citizen participation empowerment outskirts programa escolhas public policy social inclusion youth |
| title | The Art of Governing Youth: Empowerment, Protagonism, and Citizen Participation |
| title_full | The Art of Governing Youth: Empowerment, Protagonism, and Citizen Participation |
| title_fullStr | The Art of Governing Youth: Empowerment, Protagonism, and Citizen Participation |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Art of Governing Youth: Empowerment, Protagonism, and Citizen Participation |
| title_short | The Art of Governing Youth: Empowerment, Protagonism, and Citizen Participation |
| title_sort | art of governing youth empowerment protagonism and citizen participation |
| topic | citizen participation empowerment outskirts programa escolhas public policy social inclusion youth |
| url | https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/5080 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT otavioraposo theartofgoverningyouthempowermentprotagonismandcitizenparticipation AT otavioraposo artofgoverningyouthempowermentprotagonismandcitizenparticipation |