Justifying self-organisation: between inequality and critique

Based on two ethnographic fieldwork and the concepts of self-organisation and semi-organisation, this chapter analyses how young people from Denmark organise themselves within their leisure. The chapter focuses on how young people design participatory possibilities for other young people mainly by themselves, but also through dialogue and collaboration with municipalities, associations and external entities. The chapter draws upon Boltanski and Thévenot’s pragmatic sociology and illustrates how temporal and spatial logics influence youth participatory processes. The notion of justification makes it possible to analyse participatory processes which are often taken for granted when it comes to designing participatory spaces for young people in Scandinavia. The chapter title, Between Inequality and Critique, denotes an intersection between how institutional logics, on the one hand, construct unequal opportunities for young people and, at the same time, motivates a critical thinking towards existing participatory possibilities, which foster processes of empowerment that would not emerge otherwise.

Key findings
- Time and space in young people’s everyday life are hidden structures which can construct inequalities in terms of how and which participatory processes are legitimised.
- The chapter provides critical reflections about the way in which institutions construct space, time and place for young people’s participation. And why time and space are relevant to understanding youth and complex processes of inequality.
- Adult-led participatory approached tend to neglect young people’s perspectives and approaches to designing participatory spaces, which consequently can result in young people losing their motivation to participate. The chapter elucidates how young people participate through self-organised and semi-organised practices that are not adult-led.
- Young people who try to organise themselves experience the need to justify their participatory approach, but mighty be marginalised because institutionalised participatory spaces are in favour in Europe.