ABSTRACT
The introductory chapter explores the different opportunities and means for civic engagement that are drawn upon by adolescents and young people across the Global South to express themselves on issues that affect them, emphasising the diversity of expressions of ‘citizenship’ that these constitute. A central concern is the meaning and practice of ‘citizenship’ in contexts of high youth unemployment and political instability, and where age and gender-related social norms further marginalise adolescent and young people’s agency and voice within traditional civic spaces. Proposing a reconceptualisation of ‘citizenship’, the introduction draws attention to the political imagination of young people, which is often in tension with policy narratives and approaches to adolescent and young people’s civic engagement, but which is central to understanding citizenship practices under conditions of precarity and marginality.
