Conclusions

Abstract

Young people attempting to negotiate their relationship to the nation-state in Canada do so from within a specific cultural field, one that is burdened with histories that continue to resonate in the present, and political ideologies that shape both the contemporary moment and the future. They must confront first and foremost the construction of the “good citizen” as a cultural phenomenon that carries traces of Canadian classism, racism, and colonialism, the legacies of liberalism and neoliberalism, and a moral code that finds expression in the wider cultural sphere through such sites of representation as the media. The implications of this context—that is, of the cultural spaces within which young people might understand their relationship to the state—is that “activism,” as one mode of democratic engagement with the public sphere, is placated through depoliticized references to charitable acts without critical scrutiny, and offered as a liberal means by which the individual might assuage his or her sense of responsibility to the state. Such placation takes place even while certain forms of activist engagement—particularly those that challenge state structures and authority—are curtailed or misrepresented through structures such as policing and media.