YOUTH CIVIC PARTICIPATION: Activating Feminist/Critical Race/LGBTQ+/Crip Justice Theories

Youth activists, as innovators of protest tactics, are at the forefront of social change across the globe. Contemporary examples abound of youth mobilizing through social media with a sense of urgency and passion. Their strategies with hashtags, memes, remixes, augmented reality, 360-degree immersion, interactive stories, among others, in working en masse, are bold, purposeful, take upstander action, educate, and have resolve. Youth who trouble the monotheisms of the Anthropocene and the Capitalocene are the focus of this chapter. They are building together their own response-abilities to decenter human-centered times of the Anthropocene and capital-centered times of the Capitalocene; and envision new systems that restore and sustain equitable, diverse, and inclusive practices. Such youth are creating, through praxis, intersectional feminist/critical race/LGBTQ+/crip justice theories and practices. This chapter contributes a robust intersectional theoretical framework from the study of youth innovative use of digital media to counter social inequities, gun violence, and environmental destruction. The youth-generated digital media strategies can teach art educators how to engage a community of learners in civic participation in which art is a necessary platform to foster social justice.