‘There is no alternative?’: challenging dominant understandings of youth politics in late modernity through a case study of the 2010 UK student occupation movement

Abstract

Utilising an in-depth case study of a student occupation at Newcastle University as its focus, this article makes a critical appraisal of Beck, Giddens and Inglehart's ideas about youth and political agency in late modernity. In short, we argue that when considering the case of the 2010 UK student occupation movement, dominant theoretical thinking about young peoples' politics overemphasises the importance of individualism and ‘lifestyle politics’ and is premised on a somewhat uncritical philosophical approach towards youth's collective ability to self-organise for social change in the modern world. Interview data from our case study highlight the importance of collective reflexivity in the student movement, the merging of so called ‘materialist’ and ‘post-materialist’ political values and the importance of both physical and virtual spaces for youth activism.