Learning to be otherwise : ethnicity and the pedagogic space of youthful subjectivities

What I have suggested is not so grand to be called a new agenda in youth studies, or the introduction of another Big Theory in the area, but a more modest attempt to refashion an empirical focus, especially for the analysis of the complex relation between ethnicity and subcultures. As Latour (2005, p. 183) argues, whenever we speak of a 'society', a 'structure', a 'system' or any 'already assembled' entity, we need to ask: Which group? Where? Involving whom? How has it been 'compiled'? I would add: What kinds of practices of composition do actors engage in to assemble these entities? How do actors acquire the resources to do the work of assembling? And how do they acquire the capacities to be otherwise? Such an approach is not about doing away with the sociocultural categories with which we work (whether these be class, race or gender), but to make these subject to empirical investigation.