ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on young people's relationship with contemporary politics, and identifies some of the assumptions relied on in descriptions of their activity as either political or as some other kind of activity. A political economy of generations appreciates that young people by and large do not have the kinds of capitals that provide access to the traditional political field, and will largely be excluded from it. The chapter argues that distributed denial of service action (DDoS) actions, hacking, satire and street protects are 'political' in ways that expand the repertoire of the political beyond the traditional framework. As predicted by a Bourdieun account, DDoS and hacking are often regarded as not 'real' politics. Alongside a growth of left-wing or progressive youth politics, is a growing network of young, radical ultra-right and 'patriotic' movements. Australia is one of many countries now home to an assemblage of far-right, para-military, ultra-nationalist, anti-Semitic, anti-Islamic, neo-Nazi movements, which are attractive to young activists.
