Helping young people and professionals to speak out: “Cultures and youth policies” national meeting

As part of the Rencontres nationales “Cultures et politiques de la jeunesse” (“Cultures and youth policies”), which brought the year of the French Capital of Culture to a close in Villeurbanne, I was commissioned by the Observatoire des Politiques Culturelles (organizer of the meetings) to lead preliminary discussion groups with young participants and local professionals, in order to prepare with them their public speeches during the meetings, planned for each of the themes: childhood, adolescence, entry into adulthood.

To enable people to speak out, I organized collective intelligence mechanisms, so that everyone could gain confidence. Then I had to organize the content of the discussions, so that they would be genuine and enriching, without putting people “at risk” in their institutional setting.

The Encounters were opened and closed by young people themselves, and local professionals also took the floor in public. The work also consisted in helping to structure these speeches and build self-confidence.

The contributions of young people and local professionals, based on their experiences of the French Capital of Culture, were concrete and enriching; we realize that if we know how to bring out the word and the thought, people on the ground have a real intelligence of their actions. Complementary to, but no less important than, that of sociologists and experts.

This work was carried out in close collaboration with emmanuel vergès (co-director of the OPC), Vincent Guillon (co-director of the OPC), Élise Colin Madan (in charge of meetings at the OPC), Élise Capogna (in charge of the Villeurbanne youth program) and Simon Meyer (director of cultural affairs for Villeurbanne).

“Cultures and youth policies” national meetings

From childhood to young adulthood, the different moments of youth raise specific questions. What aesthetic and educational experiences can we offer children? What cognitive and social constructs are involved? Is artistic and cultural education on the way to depoliticization? Do we need to support teenagers’ sociability and digital culture? Are young adults reinventing the forms and motives of political commitment?

With contributions from specialists and controversial discussions, these two days will provide an opportunity to debate these cultural issues as perspectives for renewing youth policies. An event designed for players in the fields of culture, youth and education.

National meetings organized by the City of Villeurbanne and the OPC to conclude a year 2022 “French Capital of Culture” placed under the sign of youth.

To find out more about the meetings and the subject:

• Summary of the “Cultures and youth policies” national meetings.
• L’Observatoire n°60. Dossier “Youth, politics and culture: changing the perspective”.

Youth Speaking

The two young people (aged 17 and 18) who opened the meetings proposed (as a summary of the exchanges) four recommendations, which they felt were important for culture to be both accessible to young people and a tool for intergenerational emancipation. Their reflections were really based on what they had experienced in 2022 thanks to Villeurbanne Capitale Française de la Culture:

1. Regularity of events that young people help to program :
   • Because it brings so much to young people.
   • Not events programmed by adults.
   • All young people involved in programming.
2. Open up to other cultures & cultural practices :
   • To avoid gentrification.
   • To avoid this trap.
   • Don’t forget a part of culture, because you can exclude without realizing it.
   • Bring together several establishments, as well as out-of-school youth (on social networks, there’s everyone).
   • Raise awareness among families.
3. Free :
   • Essential for youth participation
4. Spaces (in the city):
   • This encourages encounters and links.
   • And it encourages cultural practices.

Professionals speak out on entering adulthood

By Benoît :
I’m Benoît Labourdette, and I’ve been running workshops with local professionals and young people to prepare for these speaking events. On the subject of entering adulthood, a dozen players from the worlds of culture, youth and popular education were brought together to discuss and elaborate together. They wrote this collective text.

By the group:
On April 27, we were brought together to take part in a working group on the cultural issues facing 18-25 year-olds, in preparation for our collective speech. 5 minutes is a very short time to respond to such a vast subject, nourished by our experiences in the field. So we decided to share with you what we had to say in the face of such astonishment. We asked ourselves: what is the place of young people in these meetings? What is the political and therefore cultural intention for young people behind this event?

Let’s start with the notion of commitment: young people are very committed to politics, as we saw very recently with the protest mobilizations of young people for the right to retirement, or the refusal to generalize universal national service. But when it comes to cultural and social institutions, there’s more of an injunction to get young people involved in schemes, so that they can “say it works”. This is unhealthy, and creates “youth boxes”. We disagree with this approach, which serves not the needs of the beneficiaries, but those of the institutions behind the projects. We are asking ourselves the fundamental question of the mission of cultural players. And in practice, we question the relevance of the call for projects policy: is this funding really there for young people? We advocate global funding for the operation of structures, which would enable them to build with young people, in openness.

Calls for projects, which can be interesting, often don’t come at the right time for young people, so we end up “needing” them to fill projects. Socio-educational structures are not “public distributors”. Our actions must be carried out for and with local residents, at their pace. When we fight not to impose a project, but to build on the realities of our partners, their needs and their objectives, it changes everything.

With regard to the objective of “cultural emancipation”, i.e. autonomy in one’s cultural choices, we raise the question of EAC policies implemented before the age of 18? Do they promote emancipation? In their school careers, young people are mainly exposed to top-down culture, “thinking in the place of”. Isn’t it normal, then, that when they become independent, they want to emancipate themselves from legitimized culture?

So, what can we do for young people after the age of 18? Above all, don’t speak for others. This raises the question of the definition of culture. Do we mean the dominant culture? If a common culture makes society, why doesn’t society evolve with the metamorphosis of the cultures that populate our daily lives?

It’s a political issue, a matter of freedom and emancipation. Wouldn’t the idea of a joint ministry for youth and culture be more coherent?