Drawing on research in progress in the Partispace project we make a case for the recognition of the importance of non-formal spaces in response to young refugees across three different national contexts: Frankfurt in Germany; Gothenburg in Sweden; and Manchester in the UK. It is argued that recognition of local regulation and national controls of immigration which support climates of hostility makes it important to recognise and affirm the significance of non-formal spaces and ‘small spaces close to home’ which are often developed in the ‘third space’ of civil society and arise from the impulses driven by the solidarity of volunteers. In these contexts it is important that practices of hospitality can develop which symbolically reconstitute refugees as hosts and subjects of a democratic conversation, without which there is no possible administrative solution to the refugee crisis. It is essential that educational spaces such as schools, colleges and universities forge strong bonds with such emergent spaces.

institutionalised concept of participation to ascribe young people a lack of interest in participation, this article focusses on the participation biographies of young people in European countries. The analysis reveals that participatory activities emerge differently where they become biographically meaningful. They can be expressions of the search for recognition and for feelings of self-efficacy, of coping with biographical challenges as well as with experiences in institutional contexts and of how young people position themselves between youth and adults. Thus, this article underscores that participation is not just a question of formal information but one of responses to and experiences of societal recognition.

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Wie werden junge Erwachsene linkspolitisch aktiv? Die empirische Studie rekonstruiert den Prozess linker Politisierung in der Adoleszenz aus biographischer Perspektive. Dabei reflektiert sie ihr Vorhaben aus forschungsethischer und methodischer Perspektive und geht den Fragen nach biographischen Motivationen und Vollzugsweisen, den Auswirkungen einer Politisierung auf den adoleszenten Lebensverlauf als auch den Kontextbedingungen einer solchen nach. Verorten lässt sich die interdisziplinäre Studie an der Schnittstelle der politischen Sozialisations-, Biographie-, Übergangs- und Bildungsforschung.

Biographical research approaches have been relevant for the analysis of transitions in the life course for a long time. From the beginning of a social science-based analysis of (auto-)biographical narratives, the “biography” as concept was oriented towards understanding the relationship between the development of individual identity against the background of collective phenomena as well as in their relevance for life histories. But biographical narrations are also connected to discourses and discursive orientation patterns. The concept of “articulation” in the sense of Stuart Hall allows for the building of a bridge between discourses and subject positions, in describing this as a suture between discourses and a subject. Based on the re-analysis of three narrative interviews which are linked to different biographical research projects, the article explains and illustrates three different modi of articulation linked to relevant biographical transitions. All three modi of articulation are examples that show the complexity and variety of social positioning and articulation in biographical turning points. At the end the article discusses the added value and the possibilities of this approach in understanding transitions in life courses from a biographical perspective.