Politics, anti-politics, quiescence and radical unpolitics: young men's political participation in an ‘ordinary’ English town

Abstract

The origins of this article are threefold. They lie in arguments about young people as either politically apathetic or as heralds of new forms of technologically enabled politics; in political arguments about the rise of the right in the UK, especially in places with a visible minority population; and in the debates about unruly urban youth in public spaces, especially their involvement in urban unrest in English cities in August 2011. These three sets of arguments are explored through a study of political and civic engagement by young men on the margins of the labour market. The focus on men is deliberate. Young men, as the key actors in most forms of public unrest and 90% of those arrested after the urban ‘riots’ in English cities in August 2011, are more likely to engage in various forms of visible protest than other groups in society, including young women. It is also evident that young men on the margins of the labour market or without waged work are likely to be those with most time and perhaps the strongest inclination to become involved in various forms of political action, as they seldom involve themselves in different forms of domestic labour, whether in their parental or own households. Our aim is to critically assess these arguments in an ‘ordinary’ English town, recognising that quiescence and apathy are harder (and less interesting) to observe than protest.