Talking Politics

Originally published in 1991, this study examines the views of politics presented by young people in contemporary Britain. Bhavnani argues that previous studies of youth and youth culture were limited by too great a reliance on simple survey techniques, and by lack of attention to conceptions of politics amongst young people, and to politics as a series of lived relationships rather than a set of external objects. Instead, she uses ethnographic approaches and open-response interviewing within the broad theoretical framework of social representations. The political is taken to refer to the ways in which people regulate, and attempt to regulate with a view to challenging, unequal social relationships. Within this the specific issues examined are employment, unemployment, youth training schemes, democracy and voting, racism, and marriage. Bhavnani's analysis, organised by themes such as disposable income and social and personal control, tackles questions of power in the research process; and a notion of discursive configurations as distinct from social representations.