Anthropocene challenges for youth research: understanding agency and change through complex, adaptive systems

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Anthropocene has come to signify human dominance over the more-than-human world with all its negative consequences for this planet’s human and nonhuman inhabitants. As young people have started to express their feelings of concern and frustration with the inertia of the political elites, youth research, too, is called upon to reconsider and broaden its perspective. In particular, we argue, that the Anthropocene challenges anthropocentrism, dualisms, and traditional notions of agency in youth research, and must be critiqued through multi-disciplinary investigation. A transgression of the mainstream paradigm in youth research through the perspective of Complex Adaptive Systems Theory (CAS) could provide much needed analyses of a broad range of issues at the intersection of youth and ecological concerns. This article will therefore outline Complex Adaptive Systems Theory (CAS) as a multi-disciplinary tool, and apply it to two examples: the biosocial system of the Elwha River waterscape, and the #Fridays for Future strikes that are both motivated by environmental concerns. Finally, it discusses the possible contributions of a CAS approach in youth research to a better understanding of agency and change in ecologically turbulent times.