'Scuffed up': youth politics and struggles against marginalisation

Youth studies is a prominent and established field in social sciences. Established before the Second World War, it has, however, been dominated by Anglo-American scholars, and most of all by sociology. As someone who has been reading such literature for decades, I can promptly recall only a few key books of the field published outside of the UK and USA. Scholars interested in the topic know there have been several interesting collections and monographs published in Germany, Russia and Spain, and also most European and Latin American countries have their own traditions engaged with youth studies. However, a lot of these works are published either in national languages or – when in English – are little known, outside of the academics working within the particular region. The limited interest of such studies and edited volumes is also probably due to the fact that these books focus solely on their own region. The book under review is published by the Estonian National Museum, and the editors are anthropologists. The collection is thick, containing more than 35 chapters, by nearly 40 authors from different countries, writing about various aspects and groups within youth culture. Among the authors, anthropologists dominate, but there are also psychologists, lawyers, market researchers, artists and various activists. This diverse collective is also responsible for an extremely eclectic collection of chapters, which to my mind makes the overall impression sometimes too hectic. The kaleidoscope of youth cultures is mirrored by topics the authors discuss – punks, hiphoppers, hikers, chavs, migrant youth, children's art, to name a few. Geographically, the different chapters cover a number of European countries, from Russia to the UK.