New kids on the (university) block: Narratives of place, political participation and change by students in mobility

Abstract

University students that move to study can constitute themselves as political actors in their new city, and regarding their new communities, by stably engaging as activists in local collectives, participating in occupations or place-demonstrations. However, students in these mobility conditions are still seen as temporary city users and their engagement with local institutions and communities is understudied. Drawing on social representations and narrative approaches, this study seeks to understand how such students make sense of their in-place political participation, construct senses of place, and constitute themselves as political actors engaging with the institutional-Others and the local communities. We analysed 14 walking-interviews conducted in Bologna with students involved in political collectives, and identified two narratives: (1) A Confrontational Narrative, showing students framing their political engagement in and through the opposition between their collective-Self and the institutional-Other responsible for urban interventions; (2) A Polyphonic Narrative bringing the voices of different urban dwellers as allies in making and sharing multi-function public places. Both narratives mobilise a shared social representation objectifying the urban approach of local institutions as defensive. These findings demonstrate the plurality of roles students in mobility can play in the social negotiation of place, place-relevant relations, re-constructing places, communities and themselves as political actors. Moreover, this work illustrates the relevance of a psychosocial perspective integrating narratives and social representations for a better understanding of located meaning-making processes.