Introduction

For some time now, the crisis narratives that have attended young people's political participation have been qualified by a growing body of research demonstrating the significance of forms of political action outside of electoral and party politics (Marsh et al, 2007). There is in the literature a growing recognition of the range of alternative, informal and everyday repertoires of political action in which citizens, and perhaps young citizens especially, are engaging (Zukin et al, 2006; Dalton, 2008). The study of youth participation has also seen greater attention to differences among young people, particularly of gender and educational status and, more irregularly, of ethnicity. The latter focus has received on-going attention in public and government discourses though, where ethnic minority young people have been the objects of particular concern. For instance, in the anxious debates about youth political apathy in the UK in recent years, connected to the low levels of electoral participation among 18- to 24-year-olds in elections since 2001 (Marsh et al, 2007), it is often suggested that ethnic minority young people are even less likely to turn out to vote, as compared to young people in general or older ethnic minority groups (Purdam et al, 2002; Electoral Commission, 2003, 2005), and that ethnic minority young people are less civically engaged (Janmaat, 2008). In the aftermath of disturbances in 2001 and the 2005 London bombings, such narratives have increasingly converged on the issue of religious, and particularly Muslim, youth identities, centring on concerns about political disaffection, failed integration, a lack of social capital consonant with democratic participation, or violent political extremism.

In this chapter I argue that the evidence base underpinning perceptions that participation in democratic life among ethnic minority and Muslim young people is lower than for other groups of young people is rather weak, while those studies that do exist do not necessarily sustain such generalised crisis narratives. Furthermore, public and academic discourses on ethnic minority young people have paid insufficient attention to the ways in which ethnic minority young people do politically engage. In this chapter, I address the varied forms of political action among ethnic minority young people within and beyond mainstream electoral politics, drawing on qualitative research with ethnic minority young activists carried out in the UK.