11 Youth Rising: Exploring a New Generation of Activism Through Creative Justice
Michael Finnerana and Rachael Jacobsb
aDepartment of Drama and Theatre Studies, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland
bSchool of Education, Western Sydney University, Australia
Abstract
Youth activism through the arts creates a form of engagement that reconnects the body, spirit and mind, and can engage people through imagination, emotionally moving moments, care and joy; qualities often missing from conversations about struggle and resistance. This chapter sketches the parameters of the relationship between youth, activism, the arts and social justice. It outlines the nature of the relationship that young people have with activism at this moment in history and offers some consideration of why this relationship is not an idle luxury or fanciful pastime, but an urgent necessity for many young people. Some of the broader conceptual considerations that frame this relationship are examined. The chapter then turns to matters of justice and the search for impactful and affective change towards just ends, which we argue is at the heart of all activist activity. A framework for creative justice (Finneran & Jacobs, 2025) developed by the authors is offered, which allows for the positioning of artistic activist work. The chapter concludes with a case study of this framework in action in a climate change project.
Keywords
youth activism, arts activism, arts education, creativity, creative justice.
Youth Rising: Exploring a New Generation of Activism Through Creative Justice
The arts are used regularly as activist interventions in contemporary society through parades, stage performances, song, murals and everyday performativity. Arts activism is particularly attractive to young people who are often silenced, overlooked or patronised in conversations about issues that pertain to them and their world. Their relationship with art and social change is an interesting and complex one (Belfiore, 2011; Belfiore & Bennett, 2008) and continues to evolve as a catalyst for social transformation and as the complexity of the world accelerates (Rosa, 2013) and ideas of normality recede (Sardar, 2010).
The arts have always served as a mirror reflecting the complexities of human struggle. From the ancient Greek tragedies that delved into the essence of human nature to Shakespearean dramas exploring power dynamics and morality, theatre has been a medium for examining the human experience. Through the portrayal of symbolism and personal narratives, the arts provide a space for introspection and dialogue, inviting audiences to confront uncomfortable truths and challenge prevailing norms. Similarly, the arts provide a centuries-old canvas for storytelling dystopias and utopias, warning us of dangerous paths humans tread and the joyful flourishing that awaits us if we make better choices. Through the arts, individuals can inhabit different perspectives, allowing for the fostering of empathy and understanding, compelling reflection on societal injustices and inspiring action. Perhaps most compellingly of all, the arts provide a blank page or street or image on which youth can express their thoughts on how the social imaginary (Taylor, 2004) should be constituted and dream of what a utopian world (Busby, 2021; Dolan, 2005) might look like for them and their peers.
This chapter sketches the parameters of the relationship between youth, activism, the arts and social justice. It outlines the nature of the relationship which young people have with activism at this moment in history and offers some consideration of why this relationship is not an idle luxury or fanciful pastime, but an urgent necessity for many young people. Some of the broader conceptual considerations which frame this relationship are examined. The chapter then turns to matters of justice and the search for impactful and affective change towards just ends, which we argue is at the heart of all activist activity. A framework for creative justice developed by the authors is offered which allows for the positioning of artistic activist work. The chapter concludes with a case study of this framework in action in a climate change project.
Young People and Activism
Activism is defined by intentionality, accompanied by an organised effort by individuals or groups to bring about social, political, economic or environmental transformation. The strategies and tactics used aim to challenge existing power structures, norms and injustices. One of the key tenets of activism is the recognition of power dynamics and the ability to identify power imbalances in institutions or systems. Acts of activism take place within a social structure and are fundamentally a visible manifestation of a broader struggle framed by questions of class, language, location, and increasingly community and ethnic identity. Issues of power abound. Power is part of the framing ecology of activist work; an operational reality in its execution; and represented in the third space of potential.
Activism is very much driven by the belief that change is achievable and can be brought about through collective action. For young people, safety in numbers is often important, as well as critical for impact. Pattie, Seyd, and Whiteley (2003) offer a model of civic engagement that only recognises acts of individuals as forms of activism in the way they link to political activities aimed at changing larger social structures. Youth activists often leverage diverse tactics to engage communities, raise awareness, and mobilise support for their causes. Their activism is often characterised by defiance, acting in ways that subvert narratives that children should be silent or compliant, or they act in defiance of social norms. A key feature of the new generation of activists is their aim to build solidarity across diverse communities and forge alliances to effect lasting change. They see connections between social movements and strive to dismantle artificial separations between issues. For example, and in general, young LGBTQ+ activists will try to ensure that their movement includes all genders, people of colour and racial minorities, and people with disabilities. Or young climate activists will cede space to hear from people affected in the global majority or seek to understand climate impacts on the working class, people with disabilities, refugees or other minority groups. Young activists have an inherently intersectional awareness in spaces where issues may have stood apart from each other in the past. As an example, Greta Thunberg was 16 years old when she addressed her positionality at the UN Climate Action Summit in 2019:
You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing.
There are many examples where youth activism is a catalyst for social transformation, challenging the complacency of the adult world and advocating for a more just and equitable society from those who are not yet old enough to have a say by using formal structures such as voting. While not holding significant levels of social or cultural capital, youth activists go beyond advocacy, which relies heavily on education and information, working within existing structures to create change over time. Instead, activist interventions are often direct, sharp or even jarring actions, aiming to create sudden shifts towards social change. In one example from the USA, the 2018 March for Our Lives formed one of the largest ever protests in American history, with between 1.2 and 2 million protesting US gun laws and mass shootings in schools. Led by the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the march was announced 4 days after the shooting at the school. Many presumed that the students would be in shock or silently grieving the tragedy. To see students expressing agency, defiance and political opinion was unsettling for some adults, but also empowering for many. This activist intervention also demonstrated that while activism may not immediately achieve its goal, it can contribute to incremental change. As a result of March for Our Lives, extensive media coverage was generated, as was widespread public support, as well as opposition from the USA’s gun lobby. The organisers continued to pressure lawmakers beyond the march, leading to over 300 changes to state laws, including the passage of a gun safety bill in Florida that raised the minimum age to buy rifles. They also secured corporate divestment from the National Rifle Association (NRA).
At its heart, activism is a form of performance. Performance studies and particularly the concept of performativity (Schechner, 1988) are useful in looking at the act of activism, with protest and a campaign for transformative change sometimes taking place on the level of the everyday and singular (Fischer-Lichte, 2008), and sometimes by seeking the radical in performance (Kershaw, 1992, 1999). Butler’s work (1997, 2015) looks at the performative from a feminist perspective and explores how it advocates for and seeks change. Deleuze and Guattari (1987) draw on Spinoza’s notion of potentia to describe what a body or assemblage can do here and now. This is a description of power inherent to existence. Here, potentia describes the lived capacity of participants (activists) to create new ways of seeing themselves and others through performance. Change emerges less from scripted outcomes and more from the possibilities that surface in the act of acting together – moments of improvisation, shifts in dialogue, or unexpected responses that open space for new forms of understanding.
Youth activism can be expressed by young performers who deliver a message in the form of an artwork, dance, theatre performance, music performance, poetry piece, art installation or other disruption. It is received by an audience, which may consist of their peers, families, community, the media or the online world. Writing from the field of feminist activism, Martin, Hanson and Fontaine (2007) argue that for an action or campaign to be considered activist, it must be visible beyond the individual. Activism is performed for someone. It is rarely, if ever, performed for no one. The performance is central to the objective. If the act goes unnoticed, it is unlikely to achieve its aim. It is essential to add that the performance of activism is a real-world act with real-world consequences. The term “performance” implies that there is something pretend going on. However, youth activism can be high-stakes, as, depending on the context and political conditions, it can have a high proximity to risk for those involved. Engaging in political organising, direct action or the creation of propaganda pieces can result in social exclusion, future job insecurity and subsequent financial instability, arrest or other legal ramifications. In parts of the world, it can potentially lead to incarceration, physical harm, torture or even death.
One of the criticisms contained in the literature on youth activism is that it tends to over-emphasise mass mobilisations and Western contexts. Broader, intersectional dialogues are needed to recognise the efforts of those young people in the global majority. There is no shortage of examples of practice in the south. For example, the Pacific Climate Warriors are a youth-led grassroots network from Pacific Island nations who use cultural identity, storytelling, and activism to demand urgent global action on climate change. Founded in 2011, the movement emphasises the existential threat of rising sea levels, intensified and frequent natural disasters, and environmental degradation to small island states such as Tuvalu, Fiji and the Marshall Islands (George, 2015). Their motto, “We are not drowning, we are fighting”, reflects a refusal to accept victimhood narratives, instead positioning Pacific youth as resilient defenders of their homelands and cultures (McDonnell, 2016). Their actions highlight the hypocrisy of their rich, powerful and polluting neighbours, such as Australia. Through canoe blockades, they have disrupted coal shipments in Australia. They have taken their advocacy internationally, for example, to United Nations climate summits, and used digital storytelling campaigns to amplify Pacific voices in global climate discourse (Klepp & Chavez-Rodriguez, 2021). By blending traditional practices, such as canoe-building or storytelling, with transnational activism, the Pacific Climate Warriors embody a form of climate justice activism that centres Indigenous knowledge, intergenerational responsibility and sovereignty in the fight for a sustainable future.
Regardless of context, youth activists have much to lose as they are young with their futures at stake. However, for young people, the cost of inaction may be greater. The challenges of the world today dictate what will be passed to future generations tomorrow. For this reason, engaging in activism is an ontological need for some young people, particularly those from minority communities. When they engage with the world and their communities in this way, they calculate the risks and benefits of their activism and make decisions either as individuals or a collective on a case-by-case basis. These risks differ between individuals. For example, activists from marginalised groups are more likely to experience more dire consequences of activist engagement. The arts can help in this regard, opening more accessible spaces to people for whom forms of direct action may cause harm. The arts help youth activism become more accessible, emotional and collective. Art allows young people to express political views in creative ways, sustain movements through joy and solidarity, and challenge dominant narratives without always needing institutional power (Ginwright, 2010; Shepard, 2011).
Creative Justice
Creative justice is the intersection of creativity and social justice. It positions creativity as a vehicle for systemic change, aimed at addressing historical and ongoing inequalities through truth-telling, healing, empowerment and reconciliation. Creative justice looks at inequities of power, both historical and contemporary. We argue that not all creativity is just, and creative justice emphasises transformational creativity, which is creative acts aimed at making the world better. The concept applies particularly to education, arts and arts education, but it has direct application to the question of activism as it seeks to empower marginalised voices and communities. It critiques Western-centric, individualistic views of creativity and advocates for culturally grounded, collective and ethical practices.
Figure 11.1
Principles of Creative Justice
There are seven principles in creative justice (Figure 11.1). It is active – creativity should confront and fight injustice. It is accessible, and we assert that everyone deserves creative opportunities and self-expression. Creative justice is inherently respectful – it values diverse “funds of knowledge” from home, community, and culture. It is innovative, and it encourages imagination and freedom of expression. Alongside this, it is advocative and empowers those historically excluded from creative spaces, and equitable in that it ensures fair resourcing for marginalised groups. Finally, and perhaps of most relevance to the discussion of activism, it is liberatory and seeks to dismantle oppressive structures (for example, patriarchy, whiteness, capitalism). A two-axis visual framework is used to describe creative justice practices (Figure 11.2). A horizontal axis represents time, and this ranges from habitual (everyday) to interventionist (activist or urgent) actions, which have a creative justice intentionality. The vertical axis describes the ontological aspect of creative justice, the type of knowledge at play in creative justice actions, and these range from praxis (deep belief and identity) to methodology (structured practice or intervention).
Figure 11.2
A Framework for Creative Justice
The resultant intersection of these axes produces four quadrants which can be succinctly described as (clockwise from top left) everyday belief, changes to policy and program, activist intervention and embedded practice.
Creative Justice inherently acknowledges positionality and ideology, and the implicit possibility in work of this nature of exploitation, saviorism, or imposing external values. We argue that creative justice must decentralise the practitioner and uplift Indigenous, traditional and community-rooted forms of knowing and expression. The case for creative justice is that structural change requires more than individual efforts; it demands system-wide reform, inclusive policy and equitable funding. The principles and framework of creative justice allow for self-reflection, critique, and the positioning of work and projects. It is a continuous, evolving pursuit, not a fixed goal; however, it encompasses activism as a particularly pointed and effect-oriented aspect of the interaction of creativity and social justice. In doing so, it seeks to embrace the joy, care, and imagination inherent in creative practices as tools for societal transformation.
Case Study
In Australia, the effects of the climate crisis are commonly felt through rising surface temperatures and heatwaves, which affect more people than any other environmental disaster in the region (Australian Climate Science, 2023). For this reason, young people in South West Sydney (SWS) embarked on a collaboration to raise their collective voices about the lived experience of heat in their communities. SWS is part of an urban heat island that experiences exacerbated effects of climate change through hot homes, sweltering workplaces and classrooms. Most of the region can be at least 10 degrees hotter than suburbs closer to the eastern seaboard (Sweltering Cities, 2022). SWS is also one of the most racially, religiously and linguistically diverse regions in Australia. The population is predominantly working class, and among other populations, is home to migrant and refugee communities, long-term unemployed, people in public housing and people living below the poverty line. There are a lot of young people, with 21% of residents under 15 years, and a further 14% in the 15 to 24-year age range (South Western Sydney Primary Health Network, 2019).
Using poetry, cartooning, dance and drama, young artists came together through a project called Chill the Heat. Through a multidisciplinary approach, artists used their skills to create performances and workshops that told stories of the lived experience of heat in the region. South Asian progressive, matriarchal Fusion Arts company, Bindi Bosses, created a collaborative dance piece involving South Asian Dancers, one First Nations choreographer and one First Nations storyteller. The piece was performed live and also captured as a video project; the artists expressed the “devastating effects of, and intersections between, climate change, colonisation, mass land clearing and rising temperatures in Western Sydney” (Bindi Bosses, 2021). A professional animator held a cartooning program for young adults (aged 16 to 26) in SWS, with workshops available online and face-to-face at one of SWS’s galleries. Two First Nations poets engaged young people from the region in a poetry writing program. Originally planned as a face-to-face project, the program had to take place online due to the ongoing restrictions of COVID-19. Two workshops of 1.5 hours long included meditations on the natural environment and the feelings of being on Country (Country is the term often used by First Nations people to describe the lands, waterways and seas to which they are connected), which were journalled and then transformed into poetry that could be read or performed. Finally, a drama program was held with Western Sydney University students where they participated in a process drama (Heathcote & Bolton, 1995; Neelands and Goode, 1990; O’Neill, 1995; O’Toole, 2003) based around The Lorax by Dr Seuss (1971), then they created performance pieces depicting life in urban heat islands.
Overall, over 80 young people aged 15 to 26 were engaged in Chill the Heat, and each artform had its own distinct modalities that became vehicles for young people to raise their voices about life in urban heat islands. Remarkable resonances between the artforms also emerged as the project progressed, and each engagement demonstrated some of the qualities of creative justice outlined in this chapter. Each of the engagements was interventionist, as each facilitating artist aimed to respond to the climate crisis in a way that allowed young people the opportunity to stop, pause, ponder, reflect and collaborate to create impactful artefacts. The artists were motivated to create outcome-oriented engagements. Each of the engagements resulted in the creation of work that was a form of protest, designed to communicate urgency and desire for change. Some of the workshops, notably the cartooning and drama workshops, honed their intentions with an exploration of ways to create lasting change through policy and legislative change. All the engagements, unknowingly and without prior collaboration from the artists, were located in the “outcome” quadrant of the Framework for Creative Justice (Finneran & Jacobs, 2025), although some (the poetry and drama workshops) were more praxis-oriented, generating personal change through a process of critical reflection leading to self-emancipation and transformation. However, none of the engagements aimed solely at personal change. All looked to the root cause of the climate crisis by asking critical questions about the inequities of social structures with a view to changing them. The principles of creative justice (Finneran & Jacobs, 2025) were reflected in the equitable accessibility of the engagements – each was fully funded with no fees, held in spaces that were accessible to as many young people as possible, with support for diverse participation available. Each engagement centred the participants’ funds of knowledge (Barton & Tan 2009; González et al., 2006) and demonstrated commitment to individual expression while building a collective movement. Finally, the engagements centred advocacy and liberatory approaches, as the facilitators named the disruptors of environmental justice as patriarchy, colonisation, white supremacy and capitalism, and similarly centred collective action as the antidote to these.
Conclusion
The primary purpose of this chapter is to offer insight into youth activism through the arts and locate it within the theoretical frame of creative justice (Finneran & Jacobs, 2025). This frame and accompanying model will evolve and morph as new understandings of the power of creativity to affect social change emerge over time. Conceptualising creative justice helps us to identify ways in which the arts create spaces for participants to question, resist, or reimagine social structures and norms. In the context of this chapter, our case study, when analysed in relation to the creative justice frame, helps to demonstrate the power of youth activism. This can reveal the hidden power dynamics shaping communities, challenge who gets to speak or be heard, and open up possibilities for new subjectivities and social relations. In this way, youth activism becomes not just a site of protest but also a site where power is negotiated and potentially redistributed through creative mediums that are accessible, emotional and collective.
Youth activism through the arts thrives on a wild openness, inviting participation from communities and creating spaces for participants and audiences to feel emotionally moved to join a movement. The work of youth arts activists is often open-ended, with unfolding potential, and where transformation is collective, unpredictable and ever-evolving. Importantly, they create a form of activism that reconnects the body, spirit and mind, and can engage people through fun, imagination, care and joy, which are qualities often missing from conversations about struggle and resistance. Creative justice can provide a useful frame through which we can consider the intersection of youth leadership, creative acts and social justice so that we might better understand and support their actions as a vehicle for positive social change.
Author Note
Michael Finneran 
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5755-7999
Rachael Jacobs 
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4742-368X
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Michael Finneran. Email: michael.finneran@mic.ul.ie.
Acknowledgments
Projects featured in this chapter were funded by ITAC (International Teaching Artists Collaborative).
SDG Alignment
Goal 4: Quality education
Goal 10: Reduced inequalities
Cite This Chapter
Attribution
Research Integrity Statement
Ethics approval was not required for this publication as it does not report primary research involving human participants, identifiable human data, or animals.
The authors declare no known competing financial or non-financial interests that could have influenced the content of this publication.
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