UPCOMING | Alternative Forms of Political Participation: Youth, Co-production and Participatory Art

This panel examines how marginalised youth develop alternative forms of political participation through participatory art, co-production, and inclusive deliberation, transforming exclusion into meaningful engagement across Türkiye, South Africa and Uganda.

Conventional political arenas often exclude young people, particularly refugees and marginalised host community youth who face structural barriers to participation in civic and decision-making processes. This panel builds on our work across Istanbul, Johannesburg and Oruchinga to explore how alternative spaces created through participatory art projects and co-produced exhibitions can become new sites of political participation and inclusive deliberation. We look into how youth who are sidelined from institutional politics engage in collective meaning-making and deliberation to address xenophobia, displacement and social division.

These participatory processes show how artistic and dialogical methods create inclusive spaces for youth to contribute to public discourse, influence local peace building and reframe what counts as “political.”

The panel invites reflection on questions such as:

• How do participatory and artistic practices enable marginalised youth to enter public deliberation?
• What alternative forms of political participation emerge beyond voting, parties and formal representation?

We will focus on exhibition spaces, photography workshops, and power dynamics in the co-production process to explore the potential for political life among youth for whom formal participation remains inaccessible.

Speakers:

Melis Cin is a senior lecturer in Education and Social Justice at Lancaster University. Her work lies at the intersection of education, gender and international development, with a particular focus on the arts and the use of participatory arts. Melis is currently leading the AHRC Project, “Building Equitable African-Led Partnerships Across Africa: Setting the Agendas for Gender, Conflict, and Creative Economies”, and the British Council Project, “Eco-Creative Pedagogies: Training the Next Generation of Teachers on Green Skills and Resilience”. Along with numerous journal articles on these subjects, she is also the co-author of Feminist Art in Resistance: Aesthetics, Methods and Politics of Art in Turkey (2023).

Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm is a senior lecturer in Politics of Gender at Manchester Metropolitan University and the Jean Monnet Chair of Feminist Epistemic Justice Beyond the European Union (FEJUST). Rahime works on Europeanisation, the EU’s gender equality policies, gender in diplomacy and elite sociology in bureaucracy. She is the author of Conditionality, the EU and Turkey: From Transformation to Retrenchment (2019) and co-editor (along with Melis) of Feminist Framing of Europeanisation: Gender Equality Policies in Turkey and the EU (2021). Her articles have been published in journals such as Geopolitics, Political Studies Review, Third World Quarterly, and the Journal of Common Market Studies, to name a few.

Craig Walker is a researcher and learning designer working at the intersection of peace and conflict, migration and development. His interests centre broadly on political violence, war, forced migration, peacebuilding processes and democracy in fragile states. Craig has worked with participatory and creative methods with conflict-affected and marginalised communities in many parts of Africa and Asia. His most recent project was as a Co-Investigator on DEPA (Decolonising Education for Peace in Africa).

Discussant: TBC

Chair:

Yaprak Gürsoy (@ygursoy), Professor of European Politics and Chair in Contemporary Turkish Studies, European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

*Attendees are warmly invited to attend the event reception, which will follow the event.

More about this event

Contemporary Turkish Studies focuses on the politics and economy of Türkiye and its relations with the rest of Europe. The programme aims to promote a deeper understanding of contemporary Türkiye through interdisciplinary and critical research, teaching and related public activities.

Hashtag for this event: #LSETürkiye

*Photo Credit: Istanbul Photovoice team

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