Chapter 7: Critical Agency and Creative Imagination: Snapshots of the Future Among Youth Networks of Activism in Italy

In this chapter, we will discuss creative experimentations of emancipative activism among youth. These activities are rooted in the local dimension, and in a form of political activism, typical of a time where the future is more easily glimpsed from local experiences, rather than on abstract long-term visions. In continuity with the spirit of “glocal activism” evolving since the 2000s, local resources and local social relations are the standpoint from which global and interconnected civic and political initiatives can be developed, especially with the help of digitalization and social platforms’ networks (Almeida & Chase-Dunn, 2018; Beyer, 2014). In the last years, and in spite of COVID-19 pandemic, mobilizations carried out by young people have identified a set of transversal global issues concerning their future, from environmental crisis, to social inequalities to gender identities. Especially in front of the growing inequalities fostered by the emergency of the pandemic, and its economic consequences, such glocal transversality reflects aspirations for global social justice, recognition of differences, and concerns by the emergency of climate change (Furlong & Vignoles, 2021; Sloam et al., 2022). This new activism is developed through forms of mutualism, self-help, sharing experiences, and local projects of political participation.