Practicing hope
Challenging myths and changing narratives of youth in super-diverse urban communities (YouHope)
2025-2027
In YouHope we will challenge myths and stereotypes of integration issues concerning youth citizens in super-diverse urban communities.
Young people predominantly live in cities, where the urgency of social exclusion is intertwined with numerous other societal challenges. Many of these pressing and interconnected problems, like unemployment, poverty, crime, and gender-based, ethnic, and religious discrimination, affect youth.
Integration and social inclusion are often put forth as the “holy grail” that will solve the perceived “problem” of “too much” immigration in Nordic societies – where immigration is represented to be a key factor causing or amplifying these other social issues and young people with migrant backgrounds are stigmatized as a hopeless group that strains the social fabric.
In YouHope we will turn the tide, by looking at the arenas and practices where they collectively engage in hopeful practices.
The main research question in YouHope is:
How are youth from super-diverse neighbourhoods in Nordic cities challenging myths and stereotypes by practicing hope in their everyday lives?
We have divided our research question into six more specific questions that we answer through a number of work packages:
WP1: Voices of practicing hope (and/or hopelessness) in the Nordic countries
How are youth from super-diverse neighbourhoods in Nordic cities voicing hope or hopelessness in the Nordic media discourse?
WP2: Organizing for peer-research on practicing hope
How are youth from super-diverse neighbourhoods in Nordic cities included as epistemic partners in research on their own social group?
WP3, 4 and 5: Practicing hope in Oslo, Copenhagen and Malmö
How are youth from super-diverse neighbourhoods in Oslo, Copenhagen and Malmö practising hope in their everyday lives?
WP6: Conveying visions and practices of hope in the Nordic countries
How can conveying visions and practices of hope from the youth’s own perspective, change or challenge the dominant narrative on youth from super-diverse neighbourhoods in Nordic countries?