Youth far-right politics in Finland as a form of lived citizenship

Abstract

Geographies of youth have explored multiple modalities of youth political agency, yet privilege apolitical or progressive forms of politics. We propose expanding the scholarship to formal arenas where conservative and reactionary politics are practiced, as these form another significant domain within which youths exercise citizenship. The paper draws on two aspects of the 'lived citizenship' framework developed by Kirsi Kallio and colleagues?: a desire to rescale society to the strictures of nation-state sovereignty and imagined national heritage (spatial aspect), and provocations of despised ‘globalists’ (performative aspect). We analyze these through the former youth wing of Finland’s populist-right party, Perussuomalaiset Nuoret (Finns Youth).