Research Project: Inventing Intergenerational Politics

1/3 of the world's population is under 20 years of age and many of the challenges the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals aim to address span generations in cause and consequence. Issues like climate change, intergenerational poverty, conflict and peace have effects which shape life opportunities and experiences for generations and disproportionately impact children and young people. Yet, institutional politics have long been and remain thoroughly dominated by adults, especially older adults. Institutions like the United Nations are working to address multigenerational problems and empower young people by developing and mainstreaming new youth political engagement strategies which aim to enhance the involvement of young people in political process at all scales. 

Through interviews with young advocates around the world and political leaders, archival and multimedia research, and ethnographic approaches, this research project traces what I think of as the invention of intergenerational politics in the decade of the SDGs and in prior iterations of the multilateral system, and offers critical perspectives on how to imagine and create more intergenerational political practices and institutions for the 21st century and beyond. This research is being supported by a Young Researchers' Network Fellowship through the Youth Democracy Cohort and European Partnership for Democracy.