Between Exclusion and Political Engagement: Conceptualizing Young People’s Everyday Politics in the Postwar Setting of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Drawing on findings from research on youths in postwar eastern Sri Lanka, the aim of this chapter is twofold: first, to develop a framework for understanding young people's everyday engagements with politics in the context of the transitions that a postwar setting involves, and second to develop an understanding of young people's political everyday engagement in a context where the state has clearly and quickly moved from a postwar stage to a development stage. The authors find that the different experiences of the violent past and a politicized postwar setting continue to play a role in young people's lives and form a constrained context in which their political engagement is shaped. Unemployment and lack of involvement in ongoing development initiatives by the state exclude Tamil and Muslim youths from political spaces and from having a political voice at the national level. Instead they are enmeshed in societal and spatial power relations in a political environment that impacts negatively on their identity construction and subjectivities.

Методика Для Измерения Процедурной Справедливости В Политической Сфере

“…Во-вторых, люди более позитивно воспринимают политическую систему, когда они оценивают процесс взаимодействия в ней как справедливый [Azmi et al, 2016;. Например, исследование, проведенное в Шотландии, показало, что оценка справедливости процедуры подачи петиций в шотландский Парламент была позитивно связана с доверием к политическим институтам Шотландии и Великобритании в целом [Carman, 2010].…”

Not In The Same World: Topological Youths, Topographical Policies

“…Such a policy line is inevitably risky as it encompasses that young people may act in ways that are most inviting and rewarding to them and take active stances in matters that public administrative systems do not consider relevant (Azmi and others ; Hörschelmann ). Their self‐generated attitudes and orientations may not serve the interests of the state and its institutions (Richardson and others ).…”

“…Recent discussions in geography have joined in this debate. Among others, Thomas (); Bartos (); Marshall (); Azmi, Brun, and Lund (); Beazley and Miller (), Habashi (); Jeffrey and Staeheli (); Hörschelmann and Reich (); and Mills and Waite () profess the active participation of young people in issues that they find important and interesting, and how they worry about people, places, and matters within their own range of caring. Drawing from various empirical contexts, these studies demonstrate that young people are seldom unresponsive to the inequalities and concerns they encounter in homes, schools, neighborhoods, hobbies, popular media, friendship groups, and other mundane environments.…”