Political Participation | Summer School

Summer School on Youth Political Participation in Times of Inequalities

We are pleased to announce that the call for applications is now open for the Summer School on Youth Political Participation in Times of Inequalities, sponsored by the Reinventing Democracy in Europe: Youth Doing Politics in Times of Increasing Inequalities project (EURYKA) (http://www.unige.ch/sciences-societe/euryka/home/) and the Centre on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS) (http://cosmos.sns.it/). The Summer School will take place in Florence, Italy, from the 16th to the 22th of July 2018 and will open to 20 graduate students as well as early career researchers throughout Europe and beyond with a specialized interest in youth participation and democracy, in different fields of study and methodological traditions, including political science, political sociology, political communication, political anthropology and sociology. It will address fundamental issues such as:

• How do young people form their opinions and take actions to bring about social and political change?
• What strategies do young people develop to cope with growing inequalities, collectively and individually?
• How do these strategies relate to issues of democracy, power, politics, policy-making, social and political participation (online and offline) and the organization of economic, social and private life?
• How can participation of young citizens be encouraged and increased through their interest in involvement and how democratic models could be reshaped in order to make room for young people’s interests and aspirations?
• Which are the prospects and potentials for youth agency and political engagement online and offline in Europe? What do technological developments mean for young people’s ways of doing politics?

The Summer School will bring together young scholars and more established academics interested in these issues through an intensive curriculum of lectures with established scholars and workshops with young activists. From the 19th to the 22nd of July 2018, in parallel to the Summer School, European Alternatives (www.euroalter.com) will hold a Democracy Campus for activists. The campus will promote the emergence of transnational political and cultural forms of activism through workshops, masterclasses, seminars and performances. It will deal with issues ranging from precarity, to municipalism, to new media and artistic strategies, and will address questions of how activism can influence institutions and build democracy across borders. All the Democracy Campus events will be open to Summer School participants and there will be co-organized events.

The Summer School will also feature keynote speeches from internationally- renowned scholars, such as

• Prof. Gema M. Garcia Albacete, Department of Social Sciences, Universidad Carlos III, Madrid.
• Prof. Donatella Della Porta, Political and Social Sciences Department, European University Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Florence.
• Prof. Jennifer Earl, School of Sociology, University of Arizona, Tucson.
• Prof. Marco Giugni, Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Geneva.

Applicants should email a cover letter (i.e. two pages) in which they explain how their research is in line with the topic covered by the Summer School, a 500—word abstract of a proposed academic paper, and a curriculum vitae to euryka.summerschool@gmail.com.

The deadline for applications is the 18th of December 2017.

Applicants will be informed of the outcome by email no later than 30th of January 2018.

Those offered places must confirm their participation within 10 days, after which places may be offered to applicants on the reserve list. Participants to the Summer School will be required to write and submit a 7000-8000 word paper before the 1st of June 2018. The paper will be presented during the Summer School, providing a unique experience for discussion and feedback from established academics and young activists. English will be the working language and therefore students are expected to have a good command of written and spoken English.

There are no participation fees in the Summer School. Lunches, welcome drinks, a farewell dinner, academic materials, computing and internet facilities will be available for free for selected participants.

Travel and accommodation costs are not included, however the EURYKA project can offer 2 travel and accommodation grants (€500 each) to selected participants. Please indicate in your submissions whether you would like to apply for these grants.

For more information about the application procedure and academic program, please contact the Summer School organizing committee at euryka.summerschool@gmail.com

The EURYKA project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 727025.

Full call on pdf