‘What have you done to our world?’: The rise of a global generational voice

Abstract

Based on a comparative analysis of seven youth movements, this article shows the rise of a rhetoric of intergenerational injustice over the past decade, increasingly associated with a direct accusation of older generations and with a generational and global ‘we’. Theoritically, we propose to approach the ‘generational voice’ – rather than the generational ‘presence’ – to shed light on the generational grievances, emotions and identities carried within movements. We draw on the textual analysis of protest slogans (n = 1914) collected directly from: the Indignados (2011), the student movements in Chile and Quebec (2011–2012), the Paris ‘Nuit Debout’ movement (2016), the Hong Kong pro-democracy movements (2014 and 2019), and the Montreal pro-climate march (2019). Using mixed methods, the article shows the existence of four major rhetorics of generational injustice – be it economic, social, political or environmental – associated with an increasingly radical critique of a legacy, deemed too heavy for ‘future generations’.