Living to tell the tale: making sense of the field of young activism

This work expands on the field/habitus theoretical toolbox to present a plausible conceptualisation of ideal-typical activist trajectories and how they result in different expressions of an activist habitus. Moreover, I further expand on this to reconstruct the shared spaces and discourses of young activism as a Strategic Action Field. The study is based on 17 biographic interviews with young activists that were analysed following a multi-stage coding process guided by the precepts of Straussian Grounded Theory. The findings are split in two chapters, the first one conceptualises the SAF of local young activism; introducing the spaces, conditions, the poles, and some of the dynamics as described by the interviewees. Moreover, this chapter explores the field in its relational dimension, namely, as a field of action which is, at the same time, embedded within other SAFs but also made up of smaller and more specialised SAFs. Following this, I propose an internal structure of the field based on two axes (poles of contentious-conform, and pole of professional-spontaneous). The conceptualisation of these poles is based on what the interviewees revealed about their organisations: ways of doing things (organisational and professional) types of attitudes and interpretations they have of activism. The chapter locates the organisations and the activists within the SAF of young activism, following their own descriptions of their mindset and repertoires of action. Following this, this chapter explores the SAF and its closing mechanisms. Given that it is not a professional SAF with clearly marked boundaries (it is in fact rather blurred, and unstable) the closing mechanisms have to do with access to specific material and symbolic forms of capital. The hurdles described by the interviewees are conceptualised using Bourdieu´s concepts of cultural, financial and symbolic capital.
The second chapter focuses on the individual activists and their self-described process of becoming activists; incorporating forms of cultural capital, as well as networks, routines, frames, and a taste for organised action. Based on the analysis of the data, this chapter presents two ideal-typical trajectories (abeyant-experimental, lineal- consistent). Following this, I explore the transformations that activists connect to their activism and propose ideal-typical forms of the activist habitus, which is based on the expectations, understandings of activism, repertoires of action and presence in the field (through a single affiliation, through disperse networks, through multiple parallel affiliations, etc). The activist habitus is conceptualised along two axes: the contentious- conform, and the liquid-solid. Following the precept that the habitus is developed through sustained interaction in a community of practice, the second chapter links the spaces they have occupied within the SAF of young activism, with their own personal trajectories, their trajectories in activism and the development of their forms of activist habitus.
Besides proposing theoretical conceptualisations based on empirical data, this work zooms in on some of the ways in which inequalities create hurdles for participation.