‘Living Rights’, rights claims, performative citizenship and young people – the right to vote in the Scottish independence referendum

Gurchathen Sanghera,Katherine Botterill,Peter Hopkins,Rowena Arshad

doi:10.1080/13621025.2018.1484076

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the rights claims-making that young people engaged in during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum when the right to vote was extended to 16- and 17-year-olds for the first time in the UK. Understanding citizenship and rights claims-making as performative, we draw on the novel idea of ‘living rights’ to explore how young people ‘shape what these rights are – and become – in the social world’. They are co-existent and situated within the everyday lives of young people, and transcend the traditional idea that rights are merely those that are enshrined in domestic and/or international law. We explore the complex and contested nature of rights claims that were made by young people as ‘active citizens’ in the lead up to the referendum to illustrate how the rights claims-making by young people is bound up with the performativity of citizenship that entails identity construction, political subjectivity (that challenges adult-centric approaches) and social justice.

Highlights

The 2014 Scottish referendum saw the right to vote being extended for the first time in the UK to all 16- and 17-year-olds
This paper explores the right to vote for 16- and 17-year-olds in the lead up to the Scottish independence referendum through the idea of living rights
The right to vote is understood as a living right, due to its infancy, spatiality, temporality and sociality

Summary

Introduction

The 2014 Scottish referendum saw the right to vote being extended for the first time in the UK to all 16- and 17-year-olds. This broadening of the franchise was significant, because it meant that young people’s voices were brought to the fore during the independence debate as rights-bearing citizens in their own right.. We use the ideas of rights claims-making and citizenship as performativity and practice, together with the concept of ‘living rights’ to explore how young people ‘shape what these rights are – and become – in the social world’ (Hanson and Nieuwenhuys 2013, 6). The growing political hostility and ambivalence towards human rights in the UK, especially towards the Human Rights Act (1989), makes the idea of living rights even more relevant

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Conclusion