Uncivil Youth: Race, Activism, and Affirmative GovernmentalitySoo AhKwon. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013.

Abstract

Uncivil Youth: Race, Activism, and Affirmative Governmentality Soo Ah Kwon. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013.An analysis of youth of color movements must be tethered history of depoliticalization of such movements waged by people of color and nonprofitization of in latter half of twentieth century (12). Those lines give reader sense of highly challenging, provocative analysis of youth of color activist movements that are provided by Kwon. Grounded in author's work as volunteer staff member and ethnographer (1) of Asian/Pacific Islander Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership (AYPAL), Kwon began ask series of questions surrounding government, nonprofit agencies, and other philanthropies that led underlying premise of book: a cautionary tale that questions the relationship between state and civil society, specifically nonprofit organizations that develop and promote youth organizing (4).Grounded in Michel Foucault's definitions of governmentality, Kwon defines affirmative governmentality as what happens when youth are called upon and empowered to exercise self-government (9). To examine how this happens among youth of color in United States, Kwon uses variety of (21) methods. The author roots her study as an ethnography, but (rightfully) explains that it not traditional ethnography, nor does it rely solely on ethnographic (21). Indeed, readers of more traditional ethnographic studies, such as those of Barbara Myerhoff, or even more contemporary work by Carolyn Ellis, Harry West, or Ann Gray will find little familiar in Uncivil Youth. Kwon is so busy deconstructing complex relationships surrounding of youth of color that she often neglects show reader exactly what this is.The book's Introduction lays out purpose and methodology, as well as elaborate chapter summaries that clarify not only content but also purpose and reasoning behind each. Kwon explains that she relies upon multiple forms of evidence tap interdisciplinary methods found in cultural studies and social sciences which allows her methodologically develop humanistic social science (21) approach in her writing. The Introduction also demonstrates flaw of this work, common in many critical cultural studies: succumbing binary thinking. Examples of this binary thinking include how forces at work revolve around forces of subjectivity and subjection (6); how government is caring and ruthless (8); how 1960s made strides forward in dealing with raciality and gradual neutralization of and race-based political mobilization (13); and how nonprofits are engaged in both activism and depoliticalization of race (23).Chapter One, Civilizing Youth Against Delinquency, attempts situate youth movement and emergence of these agencies and actors in 1990s within historical context going back late nineteenth century (27). Grounding work in such Progressive-era thinkers such as G. Stanley Hall, chapter contrasts efforts of activists such as Jane Addams and Ellen Starr, founders of Hull House settlement, with rise of juvenile court system. …