8. Fragmented Dwellings: Undocumented Youth Activism in Higher Education Spaces in an Era of the Anthropocene

Abstract

This essay engages with the notion of Anthropocene as both context and concept, and how it might be useful as a tool of inquiry in the study of higher education, specifically with populations that I argue are deemed by society as less than human/nonhuman, that is, the undocumented alien bodies dwelling in higher education spaces. The concept of the Anthropocene demands a shift in our thinking about the social world, specifically notions of agency and identity in relation to culture. This primarily conceptual argument connects the Anthropocene as context and concept to the experiences of undocumented youth activists in higher education settings. The essay experiments with thinking about the Anthropocene as context, connecting its features to that of a risk society that impacts the identity formation and fragmented experiences of undocumented youth activists, and as a concept, utilizing the example and data from a current critical qualitative and ethnographic study of undocumented immigrant youth in a university in a southern state. Data suggests that the concept of the Anthropocene renders visible the fragmented dwellings of undocumented youth activists and to read such fragmentation as productive, democratic, and transformative.