Youth Participation in Singapore: The Limits of Approaches Created for Youth Rather Than by Youth

Abstract

The article uses Singapore as a lens to explore some of the key issues relevant to scholarship on the geographies of young people and their participatory pathways. Despite a growing desire for greater participation in society, young Singaporeans continue to face challenges in the form of constricted socialities, spatialities, and temporalities that hinder their ability to achieve meaningful participation. The article is therefore framed by looking at young Singaporeans’ opportunities for and obstacles to participate in school, at home, and in public spaces as these space-times are integral to the development of a young person’s lifeworld. It also draws attention to the multiple actors that entrap young Singaporeans in power matrices which hinder their participatory trajectories. Moving forward, this article suggests that space and time is of the essence to mobilize young Singaporeans’ (and more broadly young people’s) participation. This will require a conscious and concerted effort on the part of different actors to return Singaporean youth the space and time to discover their participatory potential.