Participation and everyday life. Emerging meanings in youth cultural practices

This chapter looks at youth cultural practices as activities through which young people claim to act as citizens in their daily environments. Taking in consideration three ethnographic case studies where young people’s interest in football, graffiti, and art becomes the mean for civic and political action, this chapter seeks to answer the following research questions: how do youth cultural practices develop into recognised forms of youth participation? How do youth cultural practices change in the encounter with the external world? The case studies look at processes of civic and political engagement developing out of three youth cultural practices – such as cheering, graffiti, and art – that would not fall under the radar of standard typologies of forms of youth participation because of their ‘everydayness’. This chapter analyses how these youth cultural practices are used by young people to participate in the public sphere and how they are later turned into more formalised forms of civic and political engagement.