Conclusion: Youth, Agency and Self-Representation: What Cultural Work Can Life Writing Do?

Abstract

Our conclusion reflects on the challenges of uniting insights developed in youth studies and sociology with a close attention to the textual features of young people’s life writing. Despite these challenges, we argue that accounting for young people’s life writing requires that we adopt an interdisciplinary approach that can recognise the complex interplay between young people and the discourse of youth that influence their opportunities for self-expression and cultural participation and the role that aesthetics, genre and creativity can play in creating avenues for that participation. We reflect upon the limitations of our study, and propose avenues for further research that would continue to value young people’s life writing, while also developing the necessary flexibility in research methods to respond to the texts and the cultural work they do.