December uprising 2008: universality and particularity in young people's discourse

Abstract

In this text I explore youth's discourse during the protests and riots that took place in Greece in December 2008. These riots occurred after the assassination of a 15-year-old student by a police officer in the centre of Athens. The uproar caused by the event had a major impact not only everywhere in Greece but also all over the world. Young students played a leading and central role in the protests so that the majority of journalists as well as many politicians and theorists claimed that it was a 'revolution of the youth', the 'democracy of children' and so forth. In this framework, a new discourse cropped up. Young people claimed the democratisation of the state and society; they demanded it happened 'here and now' instead of being a future utopia. Young people engaged dynamically in the conflict, and they did so on their own terms, stemming from their unique social experience as children, as students and as young people. Drawing from discourse theory, sociology of childhood and youth, I intend to examine how their own experience has affected and reconceptualised universals such as 'democracy', 'citizenship', 'youth', 'childhood' and so on.