Wiley Youth Urban Worlds: Aesthetic Political Action in Montreal (IJURR Studies in Urban and Social Change Book Series)

Review ‘This ethnographically immersive book draws you into a world of slam poets and urban farmers, skateboarders and graffiti artists, attending to the embodied forces of attraction that animate youth political action. Examining charged urban experiences such as student protests and police encounters, Boudreau and Rondeau show the transformative power of youth aesthetics, revealing the hidden traditions of experience they cultivate.’Asher Ghertner, Rutgers University, USA‘This book’s rich, textured text captures Montreal urban inhabitants consciously theorizing the space they live and experience. That the main interlocutors are young(er) folks, in dialogue with scholars, but as equals - at least as equal as is possible under the circumstances - makes for a remarkable expression of urban agency and transgression in the face of repression, incertitude, and the absence of absolutes.’David Austin, author of  Dread Poetry and Freedom: Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Unfinished Revolution (2018) and Fear of a Black Nation: Race, Sex and Security in Sixties Montreal, winner of 2014 Casa de las Americas Prize Product Description Both theoretically informed and empirically rich, Youth Urban Worlds explores how urban cultures affect political action amongst youth.Argues that urban cultures challenge the very meaning and contours of the political processIncludes ethnographies, delving into the perspectives and knowledges of racialized youth, urban farmers, and “voluntary risk takers,” like dumpster divers, building climbers, and student protestorsTheorizes that aesthetics are an increasingly crucial form of political action in the contemporary urban setting and explains the impact of aesthetics on the politicalExamines the centrality of fun, warmth, aesthetics, and embodiment to these youth’s experience of being in the worldExplains how youth are able to practically and concretely impact the political process through the performance of risky and disruptive behavior From the Inside Flap Youth Urban Worlds: Aesthetic Political Action in Montreal grapples with the interaction between urban environments and cultures and the political process. Authors Boudreau and Rondeau argue persuasively that urban cultures challenge the very meaning and contours of the political process. With ethnographies delving into the perspectives and knowledges of racialized youth, urban farmers, and “voluntary risk takers,” like dumpster divers, building climbers, and student protestors, Youth Urban Worlds theorizes aesthetics as an increasingly crucial form of political action in the contemporary urban setting. This interdisciplinary work, weaving together aspects of philosophy, critical geography, political sociology, urban anthropology, urban studies, and cultural studies, examines the centrality of fun, warmth, aesthetics, and embodiment to these youth’s experiences of being in the world. Aesthetics serves as the predominant lens through which the lived reality of the subjects of the book is understood. It also explains how youth are able to practically and concretely impact the political process through the performance of risky and disruptive behavior. Moving from a contemporary history of urban Montreal from 1960, to an ethnographic description of the realities of urban youth in that city today, Youth Urban Worlds describes and explains the impact of aesthetics on the political.  From the Back Cover Youth Urban Worlds: Aesthetic Political Action in Montreal grapples with the interaction between urban environments and cultures and the political process. Authors Boudreau and Rondeau argue persuasively that urban cultures challenge the very meaning and contours of the political process. With ethnographies delving into the perspectives and knowledges of racialized youth, urban farmers, and “voluntary risk takers,” like dumpster divers, building climbers, and student protestors, Youth Urban Worlds theorizes aesthetics as an increa