This report analyses recent geographical scholarship and young people’s protest around the world in 2010 and 2011 in order to challenge two central themes in literature on politics and civil society. First, I critically examine the idea that young people, especially unemployed youth, are engaged only in a type of romantic, ineffective politics. Second, I question the notion that ‘civil society’ – in the sense of deliberative, non-violent politics that acts as a positive check on state power – occurs principally through formal organizations representing a generalized public interest. In making these points I argue for a new approach to analysis of civil society in human geography – one that allows for political mobilization that is informal, non-local, and based upon particularistic identities such as religion and caste.
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