Article
Молодежный вопрос: поворот к исследованию новых молодежных солидарностей (вступительное слово)
In this article we are going to discuss the methodological challenges and perspectives of empirical research of citizenship conducted by the Centre for Youth Studies. The study was implemented in the framework of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) in 2013. In the contemporary societies citizenship becomes a contested issue, which is an uneasy subject to capture with traditional methodological instruments. However, looking for diverse ways in which modern young people interpret and practice citizenship can help researchers to understand how patterns of participation, being active, and belonging have transformed in the global societies. Therefore, citizenship can itself become a methodological instrument for exploring the social processes. Our recent studies of patriotism (2008-2010) have demonstrated that place of birth, identity and citizenship are disconnectedfor modern young people. Therefore, new indicators and study methods are needed to measure these things in the changing world. In the studies of youth solidarities implemented at the Center for Youth Studies since 2009a composite methodology was developed to address such complex and dynamic phenomena as citizenship. A mixed-method approach including quantitative research, in-depth interviews, ethnography, as well as popular culture analysis allows analyzing different contexts and media in which citizenship is manifested. We approach citizenship not as a formal status, but as a deeper and socially embedded concept, a position, a strategy of planning own biographies and everyday life. Citizenship includes identities, actions, plans, attitudes, and values, requiring specific methods of study. Therefore we refused asking about citizenship directly, but combined quantitative survey focusing on mobility strategies with ethnographies helping to reveal the inclusion of young people in diverse communities, and analysis of music and videos to discover the ideas and notions of citizenship communicated within the sphere of popular culture. However, the methods are connected and build a coherent research structure: mobility, music, and lifestyles are the topics bringing the methodological parts in connection with each other. Juxtaposing the sometimes contradictory results on these topics received with different methods allows revealing the contextualized character of citizenship.
The chapter represents the results of a study of new youth solidarities based on the research of the discussion club ‘Polit-gramota’ in St Petersburg, Russia. The club is analysed as an alternative public space of young people that provides the members with opportunities for professional socialisation as politicians, journalists and activists. It also can be viewed as a collective strategy of overcoming the barriers on the entry to ‘adult’ politics and journalism. By creating this alternative space the ‘Polit-gramota’ members reinterpret the traditional political institutions and make the voice of the youth be heard, whereas in the dominating discourse young people are not actively represented and are viewed as passive subjects of policies.
St. Petersburg is home to the discussion club Polit-Gramota. The club sees itself as an alternative public space that offers young people the opportunity to discuss politics and society freely. At the same time, they acquire the skills needed for a career in journalism, civil society, and politics. Even at the height of the political polarisation that accompanied the mass protests against election fraudin the winter of 2011-12, Polit-Gramota was able to maintain its neutrality and guarantee pluralism. This protects free spaces for expression in an authoritarian state and lets young people, who are ignored in mainstream politics, be heard.
This article presents the results of analysis of representations of young people constructed in newspapers and academic journals concerned Russian higher education. The main focus is the specificity of representation of young people in central Russian newspapers
This edited collection will be focusing on the new methods in the field of youth research. Today’s transnational and online environments, where young people spend an increasing amount of their time, affect the research methodologies, ethics and data. With the rise of new contexts and advanced methods for gathering and analysing empirical material, contemporary research needs to combine various approaches and methods and pose new research problems. This collection of peer-reviewed chapters gives an overview of the new challenges, approaches and advanced methods when investigating young people. The first part of the book - In search of Crossings - is about combining different angles and techniques and stressing the benefits of interdisciplinary and/or multi-methods research. Second part of the book – In search of Participation - focuses on the questions of how youth can be better involved in research and which means and techniques contribute to quality of ethnography. Third part of the book - In search of Stories - concentrates on ways of incorporating various (textual, visual) narratives into our analyses.
This article considers how the study of youth cultural practice in Eastern Europe informs theoretical and empirical debate about youth culture. It charts the trajectory of academic writing on East
European youth cultures and suggests the region’s state socialist past (which made social inequalities relatively insignificant at a time when, elsewhere, youth cultural studies were dominated by
class-based readings) combined with the explosion of inequality in the post-socialist period (by which time class-resistant post-subcultural theories led anglophone academic discussion), makes it
an interesting vantage point from which to reconsider academic paradigms. Drawing on empirical examples of youth cultural practice in (post)-socialist Eastern Europe, it argues for a perspective that integrates structural and cultural factors shaping young people’s lives. It suggests moving forward western theoretical debates – often stymied in arguments over nomenclature (‘subculture’, ‘postsubculture’, ‘neo-tribe’) – by shifting the focus of study from ‘form’ (‘subculture’ etc.) to ‘substance’ (concrete cultural practices) and attending to everyday communicative, musical, sporting, educational, informal economy, and territorial practices. Since such practices are embedded in the ‘whole’ rather than ‘subcultural’ lives of young people, this renders visible how cultural practices are enabled and constrained by the same social divisions and inequalities that structure society at large.
This article is talking about state management and cultural policy, their nature and content in term of the new tendency - development of postindustrial society. It mentioned here, that at the moment cultural policy is the base of regional political activity and that regions can get strong competitive advantage if they are able to implement cultural policy successfully. All these trends can produce elements of new economic development.