YOUNG

Youth disengagement is widespread in the less developed regions of advanced capitalism, and precarity is constantly (re)produced in the youth labour markets there. In this context, ‘diverse economies’ such as the social economy (SE) and the digital platform-induced sharing economy (DPSE) have emerged as policy solutions to pressing social, economic and environmental challenges, particularly in the south of the EU. However, most relevant studies examine labour in these new economies without considering the socio-spatial and political factors at play. This article proposes a spatially sensitive conceptualization of the relationship between youth disengagement and employment in the SE and DPSE. Drawing on key concepts from critical geography and geographical political economy, as well as recent research on the spatiality of youth, the article suggests that contemporary ‘precarious youthspaces of work’ are created by—and embedded in—‘dismantled techno-spatial fixes’ and discusses the reciprocal relationship between such youthspaces and diverse economies.

This study investigates how members of party youth wings perceive their respective youth wings and identifies areas they believe require improvement. Empirically, the study surveys the youth wings of eight Swedish political parties, exploring members’ experiences using open-ended questions. The findings confirm that political and social aspects hold greater importance for youth wing members compared to material benefits. Additionally, the analysis reveals how members view the youth wing as a transformative community fostering personal growth, self-exploration and the development of values. Notably, the youth wing is seen as a community unified by shared values, with a collective vision for the world and a focus on collaborative efforts to realize that vision. Challenges include expectations set by the mother party, such as campaigning and career aspirations, and negative perceptions of the competitive political landscape, citing conflicts and factionalism.

This article explores Chilean social science discourses on youth in conflict with the law between 1980 and 2010. Through a scoping review of academic and scientific writings and articles in the social sciences about young people in conflict with the law, the manuscript describes three figures or semantic configurations referring to young people in conflict with the law: (i) anomic youth, (ii) psychosocially harmed youth and (iii) young people at criminal risk. The analysis of these three configurations highlights a shift from a pathological and deficit-based consideration of youth in conflict with the law towards a perspective that seeks to anticipate juvenile crime as a possible future. This forward-looking orientation corresponds to the scarcity of sociological output on youth issues and, in turn, to the rise of psycho-neuro disciplines and technologies as expert discourses on the subject.

This article discusses a situation in which civic and political engagement worked for young Algerians as a pathway to employment, attempting to understand why they used this method. A functional analysis inspired by psychological studies on volunteering was applied to analyse 17 interviews conducted with young people who expressed the motivation for employment in the context of engagement with political parties and associations. The results show that engagement with these organizations was a way of strengthening human, social and cultural capital that reflects young people’s agency to cope in a context where access to employment requires the ability to navigate through different paths. On the other hand, some inclusive roles of political parties and associations in terms of offering young people socio-professional integration and social development were found.

J. C. Lopez and B. Fisher-Yoshida, Peacebuilding in Colombia: From the Lens of Community and Policy. Routledge, 2023, 184 pp., GBP 27.99 (Paperback). ISBN: 9781032313078.