by PublicABCP
Translated and reviewed by Matheus Lucas Hebling
The dossier Latin American Youth: Political Participation, Pandemic, and Future Scenarios, organized by Olivia Cristina Perez (UFPI), Daniel Arias Vazquez (UNIFESP), and Melina Vázquez (UBA), brings together a series of articles exploring the political participation of youth across various contexts in Latin America. Published in the Revista Estudos de Sociologia (UNESP), the dossier starts from the premise that young people play a fundamental role in today’s democracies, even in the face of narratives portraying them as politically disengaged.
The dossier was conceived with the aim of gathering analyses that highlight the role of youth in building a more inclusive democracy. It addresses multiple forms of youth political participation, ranging from elections and protests to activism within collectives. The contributions emphasize the engagement of both progressive and conservative youth, covering topics such as the pandemic, educational reforms, and contemporary political transformations. The dossier also seeks to serve as a landmark in the study of youth political participation in Latin America, fostering interdisciplinarity and dialogue across perspectives.
Among the highlighted articles is Olivia Cristina Perez’s The Importance of Diversities in Analyses of Youth and Political Participation, which examines how race, gender, class, and sexual orientation shape young people’s political engagement. Perez stresses that diversity within youth groups is essential for understanding their modes of participation, which vary from protests to electoral involvement and collective action.
Another contribution, Youth, Protests, and Collective Action: An Analysis of Recent Protest Events in Brazil, by Marcos Aurélio Freire da Silva Júnior and co-authors, investigates mobilizations between 2022 and 2024, pointing out the predominance of protests in Brazil’s Southeast and the centrality of educational demands. Meanwhile, Rodolfo Soares Moimaz and André da Rocha Santos, in Sociology and Life Projects as Expressions of Contradictions: Disputes over Curricula, School Conceptions, and Youth, analyze educational disputes in São Paulo, highlighting the influence of neoliberal reforms and the challenges faced by the humanities.
The dossier also includes an interview with Maria da Glória Gohn, a leading scholar of youth and social movements in Brazil. In the conversation with the organizers, Gohn discusses youth as a social construct shaped by historical and cultural factors. She highlights the crucial role of young people in advancing a more inclusive democracy, especially in times of crisis such as the pandemic and amidst changes in Brazil’s educational system. Gohn underscores the importance of youth autonomy and active engagement in social movements and collective actions. The interview closes the dossier by tying together the central themes raised in the articles.
By illuminating the diversity of youth political experiences across Latin America, the dossier emphasizes their role in recent social transformations. Through the articulation of academic and practical perspectives, it contributes to a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities for political engagement in different contexts.
Organizers’ profiles
Olivia Cristina Perez is an Associate Professor at the Federal University of Piauí (UFPI), affiliated with the undergraduate and master’s programs in Political Science and the graduate programs (MA and PhD) in Public Policy. She holds a PhD in Political Science (2010) and an MA in Sociology (2006) from the University of São Paulo (USP).
Daniel Arias Vazquez is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Sciences at the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP). He holds a degree in Public Administration (2000) from São Paulo State University (UNESP), an MA in Labor and Social Economics (2003), and a PhD in Economic Development (2010) from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP).
Melina Vázquez holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and a postdoctoral fellowship on childhood and youth studies (CLACSO). She co-coordinates the Research Group on Policies and Youth at the Gino Germani Institute (UBA) and CLACSO’s Working Group on Childhoods and Youth. She is also a Professor of Sociology at UBA.
Technical details
- Title: Latin American Youth: Political Participation, Pandemic, and Future Scenarios
- Editors: Olivia Cristina Perez, Daniel Arias Vazquez, and Melina Vázquez
- Publication Year: 2024
- Source: Revista Estudos de Sociologia, Vol. 29
