‘Moving the Apocalypse a Little Further Away’: Young Italian Activists Between Future Crises and Everyday Utopias

Abstract

The relationship that contemporary youth have with the future is marked by the intersection of multiple crises that affect their everyday experiences and future aspirations. In the face of this unfavourable socio-economic and existential condition, studies show that young people not only succeed in coming to terms with uncertainty and precariousness but also look to the future in terms of possibilities and hope. Within the framework of a more general reflection on the crisis of the future in contemporary societies, understanding the connection between agency (political agency, in particular) and the future in the experience of youth becomes central. Starting from the analysis of 42 narrative interviews with young people engaged in unconventional political practices in Italy, this article focuses on the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis on youth political activism, paying particular attention to the temporal dimension. The results show that young activists re-signified the crisis in terms of an unexpected opportunity to reshape their repertoires of action as well as their ways of relating to the future. This re-signification has taken the form of real utopias that, while unfolding in the everyday, also take on an active idea of the future.