Youth Urban Worlds

Youth Urban Worlds: Aesthetic Political Action in Montreal grapples with the interaction between urban environments and cultures and the political process. Authors Boudreau and Rondeau argue persuasively that urban cultures challenge the very meaning and contours of the political process. With ethnographies delving into the perspectives and knowledges of racialized youth, urban farmers, and "voluntary risk takers," like dumpster divers, building climbers, and student protestors, Youth Urban Worlds theorizes aesthetics as an increasingly crucial form of political action in the contemporary urban setting. This interdisciplinary work, weaving together aspects of philosophy, critical geography, political sociology, urban anthropology, urban studies, and cultural studies, examines the centrality of fun, warmth, aesthetics, and embodiment to these youth's experiences of being in the world. Aesthetics serves as the predominant lens through which the lived reality of the subjects of the book is understood. It also explains how youth are able to practically and concretely impact the political process through the performance of risky and disruptive behavior. Moving from a contemporary history of urban Montreal from 1960, to an ethnographic description of the realities of urban youth in that city today, Youth Urban Worlds describes and explains the impact of aesthetics on the political.