ABSTRACT
Over the last 40 years, the introduction of neoliberal economic ideas into political life has transformed citizenship in many democracies. Critics have raised concern that in the Anglo-American democracies in particular, market values of possession and protection of private property have increasingly come to dominate the way young citizens think and behave. Values of individualism and competition are encouraged at the expense of alternative values of civic republicanism (a sense of obligation to the state) or communitarianism (an emphasis on the common good). There is also widespread unease that children of the market may have internalised neoliberal lessons to the extent that they now equate ‘good citizenship’ with habits of private responsibility and ‘ethical consumption’ in ways that leave the underlying drivers of environmental and social problems unchallenged. This chapter examines these ideas, drawing on interviews with young New Zealanders undertaken in 2012 and 2018. A closer look at the micro level of children’s everyday experience in New Zealand suggests a nuanced experience. Children understand their citizenship in complex ways. Many children are interested in Do It Yourself activism or see themselves as active members of extended family, tribes and community groups. Discussion considers the implications of these findings for supporting more communitarian forms of ecological citizenship
