Being or becoming democratic citizens? Young people’s liminal participation between everyday life and politics

This article introduces a relational transition perspective on young people’s political participation. It starts from the assumption that in growing up, young people move through public space structured by powerful boundaries that demarcate what is (not) recognized as political and democratic. In contemporary Western societies, young people are largely addressed as ‘citizens in the making’ who first need to learn what participation means. This article aims to examine the boundaries and the liminal positions between recognized subject positions of being or becoming democratic.

It begins by questioning dominant interpretations of young people’s political participation as they contribute to a discursive de-politicization of youth. Against this backdrop, a heuristic lens is developed on the relation between the political, democracy and citizenship conceptualizing participation as relational transitory practice. Based on expert interviews and ethnographic case studies conducted in two European cities in the context of an EU-funded study, the article, first, analyses the recognition order in which young people’s participation evolves and, second, patterns of ‘liminal participation’ between everyday life and politics. It concludes that a relational transition perspective transcends narrow, normative assessments of young people’s participation to capture the complexity and dynamics of their citizenship acts.