Youth Participation, Leadership and Agency for Decolonial Health Equity

Dear Colleagues,

Over the past few decades and multiple social and ecological crises, we have witnessed a growing trend, and sense of urgency, in the development of policies and funding that support 'youth participation', youth consultation, and ‘giving youth a voice’ around issues that matter to them (e.g., Tuck and Yang, 2014). In spite of this, critics have highlighted significant problems regarding the ways in which many researchers, organisations, and institutions are structuring the possibilities of ‘youth participation’. The formats offered for youth participation tend to reinforce existing inequities, with the voices of the most affluent, socially advantaged youth often heard over the voices of youth in socially marginalized positions. Moreover, spaces for participation are often created in the normalisation of power-laden spaces and structures, including consultative approaches within hierarchical organisations, which limit the transformative impacts of youth participation and that risk co-opting and containing youth within normative neoliberal logics of productivity and consumption.

In this Special Issue, we are interested in critical approaches to youth participation, youth leadership, and youth agency in the broad field of decolonial health equity. We are inspired by Billie Allan and V. C. Rhonda Hackett’s (2022) framing of decolonial health equity as going beyond the fight to attain equality in material and social resources in ways that maintain the status quo. Decolonial health equity encourages more radical and potentially destabilizing acts that push for trust, care, and accountability to humans and more-than-human relations for sustainable futures for all living beings.

We invite authors to submit papers that offer material on the following:

• Examples of innovative, counterhegemonic, transformative approaches to supporting youth engagement and leadership for and by youth.
• Examples of youth initiatives that contribute to decolonial health equity at either a local level or at a larger macro level.
• Examples of methods that support the building and amplification of constellations of co-resistance (Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, 2017), that 'unite', bring together, quilt, re-story, and resist (Fine, Tuck and Yang, 2014).
• Empirical studies stemming from critical youth participation methodologies in the field of decolonial health equity (including but not limited to education, planetary health, sustainable health, food sovereignty, climate change, urbanism and health, social determinants of health, and self-determination and health).
• Empirical studies or critical reflections around interpretive and arts-informed methodologies with, by, and for youth.
• Critical reflections on epistemology, paradigms, or methods that allow youth to create and amplify 'cracks' in the walls (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018) of neoliberalism.

We are particularly interested in critical lenses including, but not limited to, decoloniality, postcoloniality, feminism(s), queering, critical race theory, critical gender theory, climate and environmental justice, neoliberalism, anticapitalism, poststructuralism, reworlding, critical (dis)ability studies, intersectionality, intersectoriality, and futurism.

We invite authors to think outside the box in terms of their own ways of sharing their research. We are interested in youth-led or youth-driven publications and collaborative writing with youth.

References

Allan, B. & V. C. Rhonda Hackett, V. C. R. (Eds.). (2022). Decolonizing equity. Fernwood.

Fine, M, Tuck, E., & Yang, K.W. (2014). An intimate memoir of resistance theory. In E. Tuck & KW Yang (Eds.). Youth resistance research and theories of change (pp. 46–58). Routledge:Taylor & Francis Group. New York and London.

Mignolo, W. D. & Walsh, C. E. (2018). On decoloniality: Concepts, analytics, praxis. Duke University.

Simpson, L. B. (2017). As we have always done: Indigenous freedom through radical resistance. University of Minnesota.

Tuck, E., & Yang, K.W. (2014). Introduction to youth resistance research and theories of change. In E. Tuck & KW Yang (Eds.). Youth resistance research and theories of change (pp. 1–23). Routledge:Taylor & Francis Group. New York and London.

Dr. Sarah Louise Fraser
Ms. Katsitsiio Splicer
Dr. Jennifer Thompson
Dr. Josée Lapalme
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Youth is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• critical youth participation
• youth leadership
• youth agency
• decolonial health equity
• social transformation
• relationality