Research Seminar: ‘Dodging the apocalypse: Young people, the future and justice for all’

Based on interviews with youth across the world this talk examines how techno-capitalist precarity, disinformation and structural violence are pushing young people into crisis.

In this talk, Shakuntala Banaji explores the ways in which capitalist precarity, technology overwhelm and the constant exhaustion of small and large crises are pushing young people into narrower and more destructive sets of choices — between survival and burnout, between complicity and political loneliness, between the present and the future. Based on research she and her research associates have been conducting for the past six years with young people around the world, and presaging themes in her next book, she argues that the affective drain of “being resilient” hits some communities far harder than others, reminding us of the importance of continuing to work for structural equality and material justice, alongside an attentiveness to affective and discursive labour and care. 

Shakuntala Banaji, PhD, is Professor of Media, Culture and Social Change in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE, where she also serves as Programme Director for the MSc Media, Communication and Development. She is the recipient of more than a dozen teaching prizes including the fourth European Award for Excellence in teaching in the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Diener Prize. Professor Banaji is the author, co-author or editor of seven books and author of over one hundred refereed articles, book chapters, research reports and monographs, arising from her international research projects on children and young people’s lives, the role and position of old and new media in belief systems and citizenship practices, as well as the key role that mediated propaganda, misinformation and disinformation play in creating the social conditions for young citizens to thrive or be harmed. She has authored multiple blue or white papers for policy audiences during her national and international research projects, spanning youth in Europe and beyond. Her last book, Social Media and Hate, with Ram Bhat (2022) details historical factors in the backdrop to contemporary online hate; and she is currently researching for her next book on global youth facing mental health challenges due to climate change, precarity and GenAI.