Literacies of Dissent is a youth-led participatory research project exploring the learning & literacy dimensions of youth social movements in the Global South

This project is funded by The Leverhulme Trust (2022-2025) and based at the UNESCO Chair in Adult Literacy and Learning for Social Transformation, University of East Anglia.
This project is led by Dr Chris Millora

Screwed millennials or dangerous subjects?

Disrupting dominant political and social norms surrounding climate change, racial and gender inequalities and COVID-19 responses, young people shift between being framed as “screwed Millennials” (della Porta, 2019:1582) and as agile, “dangerous subjects” (Power 2012:417). With their activism, some have faced state violence, delegitimization and criminalisation.


Youth-led participatory research

This project will employ a comparative case study approach using youth-led participatory research as the main strategy for data collection. Participatory methods include a range of activities that enable ordinary people to play an active and influential role in research processes (Kindon, Pain and Kesby 2010). These methods will be supplemented by document analysis (eg collecting/analysing campaign posters, manuals, letters, infographics), semi-structured interviewing and participant observation (to observe how young people engage with literacy practices as part of their activism).

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