Section overview: Young people’s voice, agency and participation ‘beyond borders’

In this introduction, the concept of citizenship ‘beyond borders’ is used to reflect on the participation, voice and agency of adolescents and young people in ways that transcend and challenge traditional notions of citizenship, particularly in relation to the role of the state: migration, online participation, climate activism and counter-politics. This offers a framework for reading chapters in this section of the book, which explore how adolescents and young people in the Global South exercise voice and agency through ways of ‘being political’ that explicitly decentre the state and formal, traditional expressions of civic participation such as voting and joining parties. A key observation is that even through alternative modes of participation, gender and age norms often reinforce patterns of inclusion and exclusion that are central to institutional politics - problematising the avenues which exist for ‘citizenship’ beyond borders.