Youthful Resistance: a free workshop in Leicester

This blog has been a little dormant for the last few months, squeezed by multiple other demands on my time. To the extent that I do New Year’s Resolutions at all, one of the things that I want to try to achieve this year is to get back into the habit of regularly writing for this site. To get me started with that process, I wanted to share details of a workshop I am running, in Leicester, on Saturday 10 January 2015.

The workshop is on the theme of Youthful Resistance and has been organised by Leicester People’s University. They offer free, higher education activities once a month for a general audience. The event takes place from 1.30 – 5.30 pm in the basement at the Exchange bar in Leicester.

Here’s some information about the scope of my session:

Why do some young people engage in political resistance? What other forms of resistance do young people engage in? And, is it inevitable that people become more conservative as they grow older? This session explores the different forms that youthful resistance can take. Gavin will begin by drawing on hisrecent research about a group of young people who were active in anti-apartheid solidarity activism in London in the 1980s. Through the stories of individual activists, he suggests that (socially, culturally and politically) they were resisting far more than just British support for apartheid. He compares their youthful resistance with the experiences of other generations of activists that they stood alongside – thinking about the longer term legacies of their activism as they aged. Based on this case study, Gavin will suggest some news ways in which we might think about what young people gain through their involvement in different forms of activism and resistance. Together we will explore and test out these ideas in relation to knowledge and experience that participants bring to the session (as well as different life stages beyond ‘youth’).

If you’re in the Leicester area this weekend, with some free time on Saturday afternoon, I hope you will pop along and take part. I will post a report on the session next week.