Utopias of youth: politics of class in Maoist post-revolutionary mobilisation
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Standard
Utopias of youth: politics of class in Maoist post-revolutionary mobilisation. / Hirslund, Dan Vesalainen.
In: Identities - Global Studies in Culture and Power, Vol. 25, No. 2, 2018, p. 140-157.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Harvard
APA
Vancouver
Author
Bibtex
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
T1 - Utopias of youth: politics of class in Maoist post-revolutionary mobilisation
AU - Hirslund, Dan Vesalainen
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - This article investigates the changing role of youth in Nepali Maoism following their transformation from a guerrilla army to a parliamentary party after 2006. Drawing on one year of ethnographic fieldwork, I trace how the category of youth gained renewed relevance after the war and allowed the Maoist movement to sidestep complicated issues of class in the urban fabric. Building on a Gramscian framework of subaltern politics and Harvey’s ‘dialectical utopianism,’ I argue that youth in the post-revolutionary context have become aligned with the political project of building New Nepal, and that this allows youth, as both a category and a subject position, to emerge as tools for utopian communist politics. Through an analysis of a divided class landscape in Kathmandu, the article documents the new and difficult alignments between Maoist ideals and positions of youth in the city with lasting outcomes for the party’s revolutionary project.
AB - This article investigates the changing role of youth in Nepali Maoism following their transformation from a guerrilla army to a parliamentary party after 2006. Drawing on one year of ethnographic fieldwork, I trace how the category of youth gained renewed relevance after the war and allowed the Maoist movement to sidestep complicated issues of class in the urban fabric. Building on a Gramscian framework of subaltern politics and Harvey’s ‘dialectical utopianism,’ I argue that youth in the post-revolutionary context have become aligned with the political project of building New Nepal, and that this allows youth, as both a category and a subject position, to emerge as tools for utopian communist politics. Through an analysis of a divided class landscape in Kathmandu, the article documents the new and difficult alignments between Maoist ideals and positions of youth in the city with lasting outcomes for the party’s revolutionary project.
U2 - 10.1080/1070289X.2017.1400279
DO - 10.1080/1070289X.2017.1400279
M3 - Journal article
VL - 25
SP - 140
EP - 157
JO - Identities
JF - Identities
SN - 1070-289X
IS - 2
ER -
ID: 176855807