ABSTRACT
Many assume that representing and researching young people is a straightforward process that involves describing what is there. Against that disposition, this chapter draws on Moscovici and Bourdieu's theories of representation to demonstrate that the ways young people are represented are a historical-political activity and a result of classificatory struggles. It shows how different experts produce and re-produce representations informed by conventional conceptual, moral schemes and power relations, fears, fantasies and prejudices. The focus is on dominant historically specific representations of young people produced in the late nineteenth-early twentieth centuries when young people were named and regulated as part of a ‘civilisational offensive’. That project claimed to identify essential ‘characteristics’ of ‘youth’ as immorality, intellectual immaturity, sexual irresponsibility and risk-taking who needed protection from themselves and/or exploitative adults. That developmentalist account of ‘adolescence’ has been used to justify excluding young people from many ‘adult activities’ including the political field. Indeed, many recent official ‘youth participation’ exercises still rely on these representations to constrain or suppress young people's voice in politics. Yet, the lives of many young people do not align with these representations as they continue to demonstrate their political capacity in major social movements.
