Youth Power in Precarious Times

“Building upon concepts of participatory public culture and civics, Melissa Brough develops a new analytical framework to understand youth engagement and meaningful participation in transforming ideas of citizenship and agency. Through case studies of youth movements in Medellín, this book raises critical questions about the tensions, possibilities, and frictions of grassroots and participatory practices of communication in situations where violence and inequity persist.” - Pilar Riaño-Alcalá, author of Dwellers of Memory: Youth and Violence in Medellín, Colombia

“In few world cities do creative vision and the long shadow of brutal institutionalized violence intersect more powerfully than in Medellín, Colombia. What would it mean to respond to that city's challenges using ‘participation’ as the guiding principle? Melissa Brough's rich and clear-sighted study of local participation within citizens' media, participatory budgeting, hip-hop collectives, and urban policy making is a major advance in our understanding of Latin America's distinctive path back towards democracy.” - Nick Couldry, Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory, London School of Economics

“[Youth Power in Precarious Times] presents an interesting case study mostly unknown by the academia outside the Global South, providing a significant contribution to the debate around participation, youth, and marginalized populations, while combining a variety of academic fields. . . . One of the book’s obvious merits lies in its resistance to binary thinking by proposing a conceptual frame that provides alternative readings about a socially complex reality.” - José Alberto Simões, International Journal of Communication