Peace and Resistance in Youth Cultures: Reading the Politics of Peacebuilding from Harry Potter to The Hunger Games (Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies)

This book offers a rationale for and ways of __reading popular____culture____for____peace__. It argues that we can improve peacebuilding theory and practice through examining popular culture’s youth revolutionaries and their outcomes - from their digital and plastic renderings to their living embodiments in local struggles for justice. The study combines insights from post-structural, post-colonial, feminist, youth studies and peace and conflict studies theories to analyze the literary themes, political uses, and cultural impacts of two hit book series – __Harry Potter__ and __The Hunger Games__ – tracing how these works have been transformed into visible political practices, including social justice advocacy and government propaganda in the War on Terror. Pop culture production and consumption help maintain global hierarchies of inequality and structural violence but can also connect people across divisions through fandom participation. Including chapters on fan activism, fan fiction, Guantanamo Bay detention center, youth as a discursive construct in IR, and the merchandizing and tourism opportunities connected with __The Hunger Games__, the book argues that through taking youth-oriented pop culture seriously, we can better understand the local, global and transnational spaces, discourses, and the relations of power, within which meanings and practices of peace are known, negotiated, encoded and obstructed. This book offers a rationale for and ways of reading popular culture for peace . It argues that we can improve peacebuilding theory and practice through examining popular culture's youth revolutionaries and their outcomes - from their digital and plastic renderings to their living embodiments in local struggles for justice. The study combines insights from post-structural, post-colonial, feminist, youth studies and peace and conflict studies theories to analyze the literary themes, political uses, and cultural impacts of two hit book series - Harry Potter and The Hunger Games - tracing how these works have been transformed into visible political practices, including social justice advocacy and government propaganda in the War on Terror. Pop culture production and consumption help maintain global hierarchies of inequality and structural violence but can also connect people across divisions through fandom participation. Including chapters on fan activism, fan fiction, Guantanamo Bay detention center, youth as a discursive construct in IR, and the merchandizing and tourism opportunities connected with The Hunger Games , the book argues that through taking youth-oriented pop culture seriously, we can better understand the local, global and transnational spaces, discourses, and the relations of power, within which meanings and practices of peace are known, negotiated, encoded and obstructed. Front Matter ....Pages i-xiii Introduction (Siobhan McEvoy-Levy)....Pages 1-24 Front Matter ....Pages 25-25 Reading Popular Culture for Peace: Theoretical Foundations (Siobhan McEvoy-Levy)....Pages 27-82 What We Talk About When We Talk About Youth (Siobhan McEvoy-Levy)....Pages 83-117 Front Matter ....Pages 119-119 Reading War and Peace in Harry Potter (Siobhan McEvoy-Levy)....Pages 121-142 Harry Potter in Guantanamo: Gothic War/Peace from Bush to Obama (Siobhan McEvoy-Levy)....Pages 143-184 Reading Peace Beyond Trauma, Resistance, and Hope in The Hunger Games (Siobhan McEvoy-Levy)....Pages 185-217 Front Matter ....Pages 219-219 Youth Revolts, Neoliberal Memorialization, and the Contradictions of Consumable Peace (Siobhan McEvoy-Levy)....Pages 221-264 Katniss in Fallujah: War Stories, Post-War, and Post-Sovereign Peace in Fan Fiction (Siobhan McEvoy-Levy)....Pages 265-301 Sanctuaries, Solidarities, and Boundary Crossings: Empathetic Justice and Plural/Personal Peacebuilding in Fan Fiction (Siobhan McEvoy-Levy)....Pages 303-331 Fan Activism, Symbolic Rebellions, and the Magic of Mythical Thinking (Siobhan McEvoy-Levy)....Pages 333-371 Entertaining Peace: Conclusions and Thoughts on Future Research (Siobhan McEvoy-Levy)....Pages 373-406 Back Matter ....Pages 407-422 Offering a rationale for and ways of reading popular culture for peace, this text argues that we can improve peacebuilding theory and practice through examining popular culture's youth revolutionaries and their outcomes - from their digital and plastic renderings to their living embodiments in local struggles for justice Siobhan Mcevoy-levy. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.