Youth Urban Worlds

Both theoretically informed and empirically rich, Youth Urban Worlds explores how urban cultures affect political action amongst youth. Argues that urban cultures challenge the very meaning and contours of the political process Includes ethnographies, delving into the perspectives and knowledges of racialized youth, urban farmers, and “voluntary risk takers,” like dumpster divers, building climbers, and student protestors Theorizes that aesthetics are an increasingly crucial form of political action in the contemporary urban setting and explains the impact of aesthetics on the political Examines the centrality of fun, warmth, aesthetics, and embodiment to these youth’s experience of being in the world Explains how youth are able to practically and concretely impact the political process through the performance of risky and disruptive behavior

List of Figures vii Series Editors’ Preface x Preface xi Introduction: Voices From Montreal 2 Space–Time–Affect: The Urban Logic of Political Action 5 Acting Aesthetically: Political Gestures, Political Acts, and Political Action 10 Youth Urban Worlds 21 The Global Urban Political Moment of the 2010s: Youthfulness in Action 26 Montreal in a World of Cities 29 A Methodological Note 31 The Organization of the Book 34 Notes 36 1 Montreal and the Urban Moment 38 Montreal’s Politico‐Sensuous Feel 41 Montreal’s Place in the Global Urban Cultures of the 1960s and 1970s 49 Changing Relations to Time 52 Changing Relations to Space 54 Conclusion 61 Notes 64 2 The Urban Political World of Racialized Youth: Moving Through and Being Moved By Saint‐Michel and Little Burgundy 69 Moving Through Saint‐Michel and Little Burgundy with an Epistemology of Blackness 75 Being Moved: Representations and Affective Aesthetic Relations 88 Racialization: Disembodied Profiling Entangled With Embodied Racist Encounters 94 Conclusion 98 Notes 101 3 The Urban Political World of Student Strikers 107 Becoming a Striker: Pregnant Moments ‘Breaking the Real’ 110 Walking the City: Space During and After the Strike 117 The Political Effects of Seduction and Provocation 123 Conclusion 133 Notes 135 4 The Urban Political World of Urban Farmers: ‘It’s Not Just Growing Food, It’s a Lot More Than That’ 143 Embodied Experiences of the Spatialities and Circulation of Food Commodities in the City 150 The Urban Logic of Action of Urban Agriculture Practices 157 Seduction and Attraction in the Garden 161 Conclusion 164 Notes 165 5 The Urban Political World of ‘Risk‐Takers’: Provocative Choreographic Power 169 The Risk‐Management Context 171 Urban Dancers and Diviners: Choreographic Power as Political Action 172 Voluntary Risk‐Takers? Fear and Youth Politics 177 Collective Edgework: Distributed Agency Through Provocation and Seduction 186 Conclusion 192 Notes 193 Conclusion 198 Forms of Aesthetic Politics Influenced by Youthfulness and Contemporary Conditions of Urbanity 201 Montreal in a World of Cities 206 Note 207 References 208 Index 220