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Journal of Youth Studies

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‘I reckon my life will be easy, but my

kids will be buggered’: ambivalence in
young people's positive perceptions of
individual futures and their visions of
environmental collapse
a
Steven Threadgold
a
School of Humanities and Social Sciences , University of
Newcastle , Newcastle, Australia
Published online: 13 Oct 2011.

To cite this article: Steven Threadgold (2012) ‘I reckon my life will be easy, but my kids
will be buggered’: ambivalence in young people's positive perceptions of individual futures
and their visions of environmental collapse, Journal of Youth Studies, 15:1, 17-32, DOI:
10.1080/13676261.2011.618490

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 Journal of Youth Studies
Vol. 15, No. 1, February 2012, 17
32

‘I reckon my life will be easy, but my kids will be buggered’: ambivalence

in young people’s positive perceptions of individual futures and their
visions of environmental collapse
Steven Threadgold*

School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia

Downloaded by [University of Southern Queensland] at 18:40 09 October 2014

(Received 13 April 2011; final version received 25 August 2011)

This article discusses young people’s attitudes towards the future in terms of two
distinct risks: on the one hand, their perceptions of achieving their ambitions, on
the other, their perceptions of the future of the world, particularly in terms of
environmental issues. The data are discussed as a disjuncture between these issues
where the positive perceptions of the likelihood of achieving ambitions are rarely
linked to their pessimistic visions of societal collapse. This is discussed through
the lens of social theories about risk, reflexivity, ambivalence and governmental-
ity. It is argued that the ‘experts’ in young people’s lives
namely parents,
teachers, politicians and media
discursively create a hierarchy of risk that
legitimises individual choices about managing one’s own life trajectory while
delegitimising action towards large scale social issues. Despite considerable
awareness of coming environmental problems and frustration over inaction,
young people tend to prioritise the management of individual issues that works
towards the maintenance of a governmentalised subjectivity. When faced with the
ambivalences inherent in a risk society, the reflexive quest for order is
governmentalised.
Keywords: youth; risk; the future; environmental attitudes; governmentality;
ambivalence

Introduction
This article explores the perceptions of young people about the future. Examining
data about their optimistic individual ambitions alongside their pessimistic attitudes
towards the future of the world in general, it theorises the consequences of an
apparent disjuncture between them. This article discusses recent literature on young
people’s perceptions of the future and considers discourses surrounding the
environment, science and technology. Sociological notions of risk, reflexivity,
ambivalence and governmentality are employed to discuss how young people engage
with risk. The interpretation of this data leads to a suggestion that the more
politically progressive forms of dealing with the coming nexus of large scale social
problems are unlikely to be taken up by young people, despite their knowledge and
sometimes passion for these issues.

*Email: steven.threadgold@newcastle.edu.au
ISSN 1367-6261 print/ISSN 1469-9680 online
# 2011 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2011.618490
http://www.tandfonline.com
 18 S. Threadgold

The research
Using a Bourdieuian methodology, surveys and focus groups were conducted at three
very different schools in Australia. A total of 380 Year 11 and 12 students completed
a survey and there were nine focus groups
with a male, female and mixed group at
each school. There were also comments written on the surveys to provide some extra
qualitative data. The project investigated distinctions in young people’s attitudes
towards inequality (Threadgold 2007); their own ambitions (Threadgold and Nilan
2009); risks and problems in the lives of young people and attitudes towards the
environment, science and technology. Montesano High is a publicly funded and quite
run down secondary school in a low socio-economic area once dubbed ‘the worst
postcode in the State’. It has recently developed a Targeted Sports Programme (TSP)
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to raise the reputation of the school. It also contains a crèche and support centre to
enable teenage mothers to complete their schooling. At the time of the research, TSP
students are 45%, whilst 55% are non-TSP local students. The feeder area for the
school is characterised by government-subsidised housing, high crime rate, high
unemployment and low school retention rates. The students at Montesano High
could generally be described as low in both economic and cultural capital. Sunnydale
High is a public academically selective school, with some students travelling
considerable distances to attend. It only enrols students who have passed a rigorous
academic assessment. A very competitive learning environment where fast-tracked
University entry is possible, Sunnydale students are very high in cultural capital,
although mid-range in economic capital. Pupils are closest to what Bourdieu (1984)
terms ‘new cultural intermediaries’. Elite, private Rydell Grammar school is very
prestigious and expensive with tuition fees of $4000 a term and uniform costs placing
it well beyond the means of most families. Names can be placed on a waiting list at
birth and preference is given to the children of previous students, indicating social
capital at work. Rydell Grammar is one of the oldest schools in the region,
established by the Church of England next to the Cathedral. With a specialist music
programme, Rydell students are high in both economic and cultural capital (See
Threadgold 2009 for full methodology). As discussed elsewhere, there were class
distinctions between the schools. Nevertheless, this article focuses on the more
general commonalities displayed towards the risks discussed.
These data must be conceived as perceptions; we must understand the discourses
presented here as young people imagining the future, not how the future will
necessarily unfold in practice. Therefore, the young people’s responses here need to
be interpreted as a snapshot of their thoughts in a particular time and place, and that
their opinions and actions may have or will change. This is especially important when
considering the more pessimistic political conclusions at the end of this article.

Young people and conceptions of the future

There have been many studies in many countries investigating young people’s visions
of their individual futures
their ‘dreams and fears’ (Gordon and Lahelma 2002) or
‘schemes and dreams’ (Bulbeck 2005, see also Adamson et al. 2007). Loosely, they
tend to concern three interconnecting themes that engage with the theories of social
change and ‘reflexive modernity’: concepts of time; concepts of planning and choice;
 Journal of Youth Studies 19

and the persistence of various contours of inequality that mediate these plans and
choices.
Leccardi (1999, 2005) views the biographical trajectories of young people as a
somewhat ‘de-temporalized’ existence. Life is no longer planned in a straight line and
decisions are made on the run; this is especially the case for the highly educated
(Leccardi 2005, p. 141). Woodman (2011), in a study that engages with debates on
‘choice biography’ (see Threadgold 2011; Woodman and Threadgold 2011), suggests
that young people have a mix of temporal understandings when it comes to the future,
where coping and planning is not a solely individual enterprise, but shaped collectively
with significant others (see also Reiter 2003). Du Bois-Reymond and colleagues (see
Plug et al. 2002) categorise a number of trajectories that young people envision for
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their future: most follow hegemonic institutional logic; some have specifically parental
trajectories; some foresee a trajectory of extended education; and a large minority see
an individualised ‘combination and switch’ trajectory. The latter trajectory contains
both young people who seem ready to adapt to uncertainty and those who have not
made a specific choice of what they want to do (Du Bois-Reymond et al. 1994). These
studies maintain that levels of cultural capital create a dichotomy between those who
can maintain a ‘choice biography’ that embraces flexibility and uncertainty, and those
who are constrained to maintain a traditional ‘normal biography’ (Du Bois-Reymond
1999). Thomsen et al. (2002) argue that in the ‘critical moments’ in the transitional
period, ‘a ‘‘can do’’ approach to life may be a necessary condition for progressive
personal change, yet it is unlikely to be sufficient in the face of structural constraints’
(Thomsen et al. 2002, p. 351; see also Baird et al. 2008). Others maintain that there
was some evidence that ‘fate’ was being reconstructed as ‘choice’ and there was a
general attitude of ‘life being in your own hands’ regardless of socio-economic
background (Evans et al. 2001, p. 22). Nevertheless, this agency was constrained by
social structures. Brannan and Nilsen (2002, see also Anderson et al. 2005; Brannan
and Nilsen 2007) propose three typical ways young people perceive the future:
deferment, adaptability and predictability. The disadvantaged ‘are less inclined to see
their futures in terms of individual choice and as a risk to be taken and a challenge to
be conquered’ (Brannan and Nilsen 2002, p. 531; see also Te Riele 2004).
In the study presented here, class-based habitus as a set of generative dispositions
provides different experiences and resources that shape the young people’s
impressions of how their lives will pan out. There were several key distinctions
between the schools in specific ambitions themselves and the possible risks and
obstacles that the students perceived may get in the way of achieving them.
Ambitions regarding career and education, for instance, tended to see the research
participants mirror the position of their parents, highlighting the importance of
habitus and cultural capital. The more disadvantaged tended to aim ‘lower’ in terms
of occupational status and educational levels, but overall were looking to be
upwardly mobile. Moreover, there were distinctions in the risks and obstacles they
perceived that may stand in the way of their ambitions: the more privileged
predominately nominated individualised characteristics such as laziness, procrasti-
nation or making bad choices while the disadvantaged nominated a combination of
the same individual obstacles alongside a plethora of structural issues such as wealth,
status, educational difficulties that pertain to their perceived lack of cultural and
social capital (see Threadgold and Nilan 2009 for more detail on class distinctions).
Nevertheless, these important distinctions are not the focus of this article. The focus
 20 S. Threadgold

here in terms of the future is on the optimistic homology of attitudes towards

individual ambitions, despite these distinctions, and how they relate to a general
pessimism expressed towards the future of the planet.

Positive perceptions of individual futures

There were very similar levels of confidence in achieving ambitions, regardless of
socio-economic position (see Figure 1); there were negligible differences between
genders as well.
Overall, the young people in this research were quite optimistic about achieving
their goals with 69.1% saying their chances of achieving their stated ambitions were
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‘definite’ or ‘very good’. Only 4.8% were negative by circling ‘not good’ or ‘no
chance’ on the survey, while a substantial minority of 26.2% expressed direct
ambivalence at this moment in their life by responding ‘not sure’. Therefore, while
there were distinctions between the types of ambitions, in general there was
confidence that ambitions were achievable and the risks and obstacles that may
get in the way could be overcome.

Montesano High
Sunnydale High
Rydell Grammar
Average of Three Schools Combined
70
64.2
62.7
60.6

60
55.9

50

40

%
28.9

30
28
26.2
22.5

20
10.5

8.5
7.9

10
5.6
5.5

4.6

4.5
4

0.7

0.3
0

0
Definite Very Good Not Sure Not Good No Chance

Figure 1 Responses to survey question: ‘What are your chances of achieving your ambitions?’
 Journal of Youth Studies 21

A typical response about individual futures and ambitions is from Mel, a girl at
Sunnydale High:

I want to get a UAI of 85 so I can get into a Bachelor of Arts and then do a Bachelor of
Psychology. First do a year off to work to raise some money because I’ll have to move to
Sydney. After I finish my degrees I want to move to Ireland or England and travel
around Europe and I have family in America and in Greece and stuff so I can do all that
and I think I’ll stay overseas . . . and three kids! [laughter].

Mel envisions a transitional trajectory that echoes Giddens’ (1991) ‘narrative of the
self’. For the most part, the young research participants see their individual futures
in a largely optimistic light, even if they named various risks and obstacles that they
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felt they would have to overcome. Yet, despite the optimistic homology, these
‘dreams’ of their individual future do not seem to include the very ‘fears’ respondents
consistently expressed about the future of the Earth.

Risk discourses: technology, science, the environment and the coming collapse
This section discusses discourses surrounding global risk, the very notion of
‘progress’ and the young people’s attitudes towards the future of what we
metaphorically call, since the first photo of ‘blue earth’ (Urry 2003, pp. 81
82,
135), the ‘Globe’ (see Ingold 1993, Cosgrove 1994). Technology and science and
environmental and political concerns are central to this discussion and form a
complex discourse through which the young people think about the future. For Beck
(1992), the progression from modernity to a reflexive modernity, or from class society
to risk society is driven by a combination of globalised forces such as economics,
science, industry, technology and communication. These forces produce the
‘progress’ that the concept of Modernity has been based on since the Enlightenment,
but also produce all of the large scale ‘bads’ that may threaten the very existence of
humanity such as climate change, nuclear fallout or even the threat of terrorism.
Beck maintains that these risk developments have changed our concerns (even our
very consciousness) from pursuing the traditional ‘roles’ prescribed for us by
position in social space, to reflexively engaging with all manner of risks, from
personal to global, that we have to deal with individually regardless of class, gender,
ethnicity or religion.
Discussion in the focus groups about the comparative levels of risk in society,
or about social change in general, was almost exclusively related to ideas
surrounding the burgeoning, omnipresent use of technology in all manner of
social fields, and to a lesser extent, the influence of various forms of science.
Huntley has argued that to ‘generation Y’, ‘technology is their natural ally, a
necessity rather than a luxury, the solution to all imaginable problems’ (2006, p. 2).
However, the data here indicate a much more complex relationship than that. If
anything, the attitudes here were ambivalent at best. In fact, they often point out
that technology itself seems to be the cause of many contemporary problems,
especially in regard to environmental issues and social relations. For example,
when asked about the way technology contributes to quality of life, the Rydell
Grammar girls responded:
 22 S. Threadgold

Kath: There are more cures for diseases now.

Kim: But we have created more diseases, like the Chernobyl meltdown and microwave
radiation gives you cancer and watching a computer screen too much can hurt your eyes
and there are just all these different affects of technology that can be detrimental. At the
same time it’s increased our lifestyle. But it breaks down our social skills, in the sense
that instead of ringing someone up or even going to see them and going ‘do you want to
do something?’, instead your like, ‘hey, let’s play an MSN game with each other’ and
I think when you talk to people on line you don’t know them as well. You do tend to
talk to people on MSN that you don’t usually talk to in person . . . I think that it breaks
down society’s skills and values. (Rydell Grammar)

This discussion about what technology and science offer were connected to their
effects
negative and positive. This is typical of the ambivalent attitude towards
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these issues; in talking about these effects the students covered a range of global
issues, implicitly questioning the assumption that technology produces ‘progress’ and
reflexively critiquing the risks produced in this process. The attitudes expressed on
this topic ranged on a continuum from optimistic to apocalyptic. Optimism was
expressed in observations that discussed how technology creates ease, comfort,
entertainment and in some cases safety and security. On the other end of the
spectrum, technology was seen to be contributing to all sorts of problems from social
isolation and environmental destruction. The pessimistic end of the spectrum
dominated the discussions, regardless of position in social space.
Throughout the focus groups, the participants conflated technological, scientific
and communication themes discursively into one ‘force’. This was how all the groups
at all the schools engaged with these themes, rarely distinguishing between them and
speaking about them as if they possess an all-encompassing momentum, largely out
of their control. This ‘force’ was perceived to be a threat to many aspects of life,
particularly the environment. When the focus groups were speaking specifically
about technology, there seemed to be an awareness of the self-perpetuating
relationship between global economic production and risk that echoes Beck’s
contention that people increasingly realise that it is the ‘progress’ of modernity
itself that produces risks and uncertainty.
In the more critical exchanges there were echoes of Beck’s (1997) theorisations of
reflexive engagement with these discourses that he hopes will produce a politicised
form of scepticism needed to move towards cosmopolitanism. ‘Blame’ for the
negatives of science and technology’s risks were often placed on the side of
governments, multinational corporations and other largely ‘faceless’ institutions
(as opposed to the mostly ‘individual’ risks regarding obstacles to their ambitions).
Further, the emergence of an emancipatory risk politics1 that Beck and others hope
for seems unlikely by the participants’ apparent feelings of powerlessness and sense
that future large-scale catastrophes are a virtual certainty (see quotes below).
Virtually all the focus group participants expressed quite apocalyptic views of the
future in terms of climate change, peak oil, politics and terrorism and war.

Interviewer: So let’s talk about the environment specifically, what is going to happen
with it?
Laura: [makes an explosion sound] It’s going to go down hill and we are going to be
living in little bubble bio-spheres!
Andy: The annoying thing is that we have the technology and ability to make everything
 Journal of Youth Studies 23

green; it’s just not economically [sarcastically, making quote marks sign] ‘efficient’.
(Rydell Grammar)

Another evaluation of the future noted some environmental problems that might
impact in the next 20 years:
Tony: I think it is a lot better for us, but it is gonna get worse. Like, we are already
running out of oil and could run out in the next 20 years . . . It’s good for us now and
we’re happy to use all the resources. I think ‘footprints’ are only gonna get bigger
because all those countries that still want to industrialise, they are going to want
resources as well.
Nat: It is good for us but won’t be for our children. I reckon my life will be easy, but my
kids will be buggered. (Rydell Grammar)
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There were some distinctions between the three schools as to where students in focus
groups positioned themselves along this optimistic/pessimistic continuum. This
positioning illustrates the way habitus generates some distinctive ways that young
people engage with these ‘macro’ discourses of risk. For the disadvantaged there was
environmental concern, but the more privileged were more concerned. The well-
educated middle-class students were particularly angry, passionate and frustrated by
the situation, especially the inaction by governments and business. The most
privileged and wealthy shared similar views, but seemed to have a more cynical,
even fatalistic attitude. But overall there was pessimism towards the coming
environmental issues and global relations, especially in regard to climate change,
peak oil, hunger and poverty and terrorism. The young people in this research
articulated a genuine concern for environmental issues and quite often they already
were doing things individually to minimise their ‘footprint’. But they felt largely
doubtful and suspicious of the politics surrounding these issues.
As the following shows, touching on a number of mainstream tropes directed at
young people, they saw little point in becoming politically involved to stave off
impending catastrophe to the point where they seemed to be inferring a level of
powerlessness when it comes to dealing with these issues:

Mel: Yeah, the whole world is going to self destruct I just hope that we are not part of it
when it happens [laughter].
Nell: If I could do something I would, but I have no money to contribute . . .
Mel: And we’re 17 year old school students . . .
Nell: No one’s going to listen to us . . .
Mel: And if we protest it’s like, ‘oh, those crazy teenagers’ [laughs].
Nell: Protesting doesn’t work; it doesn’t do anything. (Sunnydale High)

There was a lot of cynicism about the political process and any chance of successful
intervention to rescue the environment.

Andy: Everything you need to do to fix the environment is either going to cost you
billions and take you all your life to get there and by the time you get there you will find
out that somebody else has a patent on it and you can’t do it anyway (Rydell Grammar).

The irony (Turner 1999, Szerszynski 2007) and fatalism present in some attitudes,
particularly at Rydell Grammar, seem to suggest a form of passive response, a
knowing nudge and wink that says ‘what am I meant to do?’ Considering the denial
 24 S. Threadgold

and obfuscating that has surrounded these issues in recent Australian politics (see
Leggett 2005, Hamilton 2007, Hamilton 2010, Pearse 2007), these responses are not
surprising.
The only time in all of the focus groups that a research participant connected
individual and global futures was at Sunnydale High:

Lee: Environmentally, things aren’t going that well, I think it is going downhill.
Soon-Yi: Like individually I think ‘yeah yeah yeah, I’ll finish Uni and go off and have a
career and that will be sweet’, but then I think there’s times where I think we’ll watch the
world explode because of all these natural disasters that are going on, and we are going
to eat ourselves because there will be nothing left . . . sorry! (everyone laughs uneasily)
Brianna: Unless there’s like changes environmentally and helping the poorer countries
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and poorer people, then yeah, it is going more negative and more problems and so it’s
not a positive future. (Sunnydale High)

Soon-Yi’s comment displays a rare reflexive connection between what colleagues and
I have called ‘two-track thinking’ (see Leahy et al. 2010), which will be elaborated in
the following section.

It’s the end of the world as we know it, but I feel fine: the disjunction between the
individual and the global2
The connections between global worries and individual well-being have been
researched in several contexts that usually focus on psycho-social aspects (see Ojala
2005). In these studies, worrying about an issue, particularly environmental concerns,
does not necessarily threaten individual well-being but may create a sense of
responsibility, discussion and, possibly, even action (Ojala 2005, p. 334). Further-
more, environmental worrying has been positively associated with optimistic and
coherent conceptions of personal futures. In research with girls in Finland, even
those who display intense environmental worries maintain optimistic perceptions of
their own futures and see it as quite manageable (Anttila et al. 2000). The discourses
used by the participants in the research presented here reflect these findings. When
asked specifically about technological and scientific discourses, the realisation that it
is modernity itself that is producing risks did emerge and was expressed mostly in
environmental concerns, but also in other issues such as social isolation, rampant
consumerism and processes of dehumanisation. This is illustrated at Rydell
Grammar when the female group was asked about the effects of technology in their
day-to-day-lives:

Gina: It’s not making our lives better because you always want more. You are always not
happy because someone has a better version and you need to be competitive and get it.
Laura: And also we are becoming a lot more anti-social because, say, on the bus instead
of talking to my friends, I listen to my iPod. So, we are becoming a lot more secluded in
that sense.

There was a surprising suspicion of the social vitality of technology at all three
schools that largely contradicts the typical mainstream stereotypes of iPod, Face-
book or Internet Generation.
 Journal of Youth Studies 25

What is most interesting about the above data is the apparent disjuncture
between the positive individual perceptions of the future in regard to ambitions and
the visions of the global future that largely spoke of societal collapse and
environmental destruction. This collapse is well expressed by Allan at Rydell
Grammar:

Allan: It can stay like this for a while . . . sometime into the future it is all gonna fall
apart and we are going to turn into slum lords and gangs in cities . . . I can really see it.
Because human nature is like a big cylinder. It goes Caveman, then we go Medieval,
Renaissance, Enlightenment, Industrial, Modern and then we will go back to Caveman.
(Rydell)
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We can contrast this to his description of his individual future:

Allan: Short term, you know, go to Uni, get a comfortable career; but the plan is to do
something like English and Drama and teach drama while trying to pursue acting on
stage or screen which is what I want.

While the result of answering specific questions in a focus group, connections were
not made between the individual and the global, or, the long and short term. This
was the case even when the discussion of the environmental and global risks was
done at the start of the focus groups.
Hamilton writes of the phenomenon of ‘distraction’, an ‘everyday form of
denial’. For example, we may switch off the news if the topic is too disturbing; yet
simultaneously believe that our own future will be rosy while the world is in peril
(Hamilton 2010, pp. 95
133). Interpreting the data above suggests a complex
phenomenon that has some similarities with Norgaard’s analysis of ‘socially
organised denial’ (2006). Norgaard tries to explain the weakness of social movement
activity, behavioural change or public pressure in response to environmental issues.
For instance, people in a Norwegian town referred to climate change to explain the
late ski season, but it was rarely a topic of conversation
people ‘lived their lives as
though they did not know or care about it’ (Norgaard 2006, p. 352). The destruction
of the environment and other large scale problems fade to the background as people
‘don’t really want to know’ and just get on with their lives. The key distinction
between Norgaard’s research and the data here is that many of the young people
really do want to know, actually know quite a lot about these issues and would really
like to see something done. But they tend to just ‘get on with it’ anyway. The theory
of individual and societal self-deception elaborated by Blühdorn (2007a, 2007b; see
also Hughes 2007), where the radical social change needed to avert coming
environmental catastrophes is short-circuited by various forms of symbolic politics,
may also be useful for making sense of this data. This simulation and unwitting
‘performance of seriousness’ by ecological actors and new social movements work to
maintain democratic consumer capitalism and sustain the unsustainable. In this
understanding, ‘awareness’ does not engender action.
Bauman’s (1991) foundational sociological work on modernity’s production of
ambivalence provides a strong conceptual framing device for understanding the
disjuncture discussed earlier. Essentially, modernity’s promise to provide clarity,
security and safety through science and rationality has been trumped by the
 26 S. Threadgold

production of complexity, risk and uncertainty. Ambivalence is both individually and

socially constructed and our life choices and identity building become projects for
producing order in an unstable and contingent existence. Carolan’s (2010) research
argues that theories of ambivalence can help understand attitudes towards climate
change, where her respondents displayed ambivalent attitudes on the subject and
some admitted that these attitudes change from day to day. Stoll-Kleemann et al.
(2001) argue that individuals may create psychological barriers to doing something
about environmental problems. To overcome the dissonance created in their minds
they construct various forms of denial discourse ranging from blaming others; the
economic costs of moving away form comfortable material lifestyles; doubt over the
effectiveness of individual action to seeing the problems as to far off in the future to
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worry about now. Following Bauman, Walker and Shove (2007) note that the socio-
technical governance discourses of sustainability themselves contribute to the
ambivalence. Yet, they maintain that ambivalence is central to reflexivity: ‘it is the
very stuff of a dynamic, critical and questioning liberal politics
difficult, but
preferable to absolutist dogmatism and unquestioning certainty’ (Walker and Shove
2007, p. 223). Echoing Beck, ideally ambivalence can foster a scepticism that can be
harnessed as a resource for change.
Colleagues and I have referred to the apparent disjuncture between the individual
and the global when it comes to envisioning the future as ‘two track thinking’ (Leahy
et al. 2010). There is one track in which the critical nature of environmental problems
is acknowledged. Within this track young people often see the future as apocalyptic.
There is another track in which people envisage their own personal future and make
decisions about their own lives. Most of the young people in this research displayed
knowledge of environmental issues and the coming nexus of interrelated problems
regarding peak oil, climate change and food production. Some of them are quite
engaged and passionate about this issue. But it is rare that this track of thinking
informs the other track where their individual futures in terms of ambitions, their
‘narrative of the self’ (Giddens 1991), remain fundamentally positive. Norgaard
(2006) highlights those with vested interests turn a blind eye: but the young people
here are not turning a blind eye and have a non-economic vested interest in the
future. Nevertheless, they do not associate the huge macro problems they foresee to
their micro decisions in everyday life. As Carolan (2010, p. 312) points out, ‘what is
sociologically interesting is not that we have ambivalent orientations towards the
world but why we have them and how we manage to still act in the face of these
tensions’. In this regard, the two track thinking of the young people in this research
seems more like a defence mechanism for coping than denial, where the potential
idealistic self-reflexivity promoted in particular by Beck comes up against its own
ambivalent obstacles. As Wynne points out:

. . . reflexive societal processes of ‘self-critique’ of our dominant modern instrumental

culture have been induced inter alia through ‘green’ critiques (Beck 1992, Beck et al.
1994), and the different idea that self-reflexive awareness, as a supposed intrinsic
property of modern scientific culture, has diffused into popular awareness, thus
universalizing this self-reflexive capacity (Giddens 1994). I want to suggest . . . that
these real developments are severely compromised by the extent to which that dominant
culture reinvents and extends its unreflexive founding commitments in the face of such
critique and public disaffection. (Wynne 2002, pp. 471
472)
 Journal of Youth Studies 27

The manifestations for young people of the dominant cultural discourses that Wynne
touches upon here are theorised in the following section.

Risk, reflexivity and two track thinking: governmentality through ambivalence?

Risk itself ‘may be understood as a governmental strategy of regulatory power by
which populations and individuals are monitored and managed through the goals of
neo-liberalism’ (Lupton 1999, p. 87). Expert knowledge’s and discourse construct
subjectivity and are central to producing reflexive practices that formulate a certain
kind of self-disciplined subject. Processes of normalisation are central to these
technologies. Risk is therefore governed through a network of expert discourses.
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From a Foucaultian perspective then, risk is a moral technology. ‘To calculate a risk
is to master time, to discipline the future’ (Ewald 1991, p. 207). Neo-liberal
governmentality is formed by both coercive and more subtle techniques that bind the
ambitions of the state to individuals’ ambitions, needs and wants, that is, their
conceptions of the future. ‘Risk is a form of rationality, a way of thinking about and
representing events’ (Dean 1999, p. 184). It can therefore be argued that the
discourses of risk act as ‘technologies of the self’ (Foucault 1997, 1988) that imbue
opportunities and limitations (Green et al. 2000, p. 111).
A crucial aspect of the relationship between governmentality and risk is that the
regulation and disciplining of risk is directed at autonomous, self-regulating
individual citizens. Individuals police themselves; they exercise power upon them-
selves as ‘normalized subjects’ who are in pursuit of their own best interests,
freedom, happiness and healthiness (Lupton 1999, p. 88). ‘Expert’ information can
be gathered about risks and then used to advise individuals about how they can avoid
risk, and how they should successfully conduct their lives.
It is here that we see the process of governmentality. Beck seems to acknowledge
this in the following:

Institutional determinations and interventions are (implicitly) also determinations of

and interventions in human biographies . . . Individualization thus means precisely
institutionalization, institutional shaping and, hence the ability to structure biographies
and life situations politically. The actual shaping usually occurs unseen, as a ‘latent side
effect’ of decisions explicitly related to intra-organizational matters (educational system,
labor market, work, etc.). (Beck 1992, p. 132 emphasis in original)

Reflexive modernity, with its neo-liberal economy, has produced a heavily

individualised subjectivity that sees responsibility for one’s life and blame for
anything that may go wrong be placed almost exclusively on the individual

discourses of blame are attributed to bad choices and personal failings despite
many traditional structural contours of inequality and marginalisation being
maintained, intensified and complexified (see Beck 1992, pp. 134
135). This
individualised regulation of risk is governmentality in action (see the work of Peter
Kelly 2000, 2003, 2006 for an elaboration).
The data discussed here highlight young people’s perceptions of two levels of risk:
the micro-personal level and the macro-global level.3 As Bauman (1991) argues, a
classification process is needed by individuals in their ‘quest for order’ in an
ambivalent world. In regard to the polymorphous array of risks young people face,
 28 S. Threadgold

they make a constant reflexive effort ‘to give the world a structure: to manipulate its
probabilities; to make some events more likely than others; to behave as if events
were not random or to limit or eliminate the randomness of events’ (Bauman 1991,
p. 1). The self-reflection of young people between macro-problems and micro-
decisions is dominated by governmental discourses that demand reflexive choices
that engage with a plethora of risks in day-to-day life that threaten personal well-
being, security, health and wealth in the here and now. The ‘experts’ in young
people’s day-to-day lives
parents, teachers, career advisors, etc.
encourage an
individualised self-discipline
to be ‘responsible’
particularly in regard to school
work and career path, as means to ensure a secure future trajectory. Research
participants spoke about experiencing this ‘encouragement’ as intense pressure to the
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point where they sometimes nominated school pressures as a central problem for
many young people (Threadgold and Nilan 2009; Threadgold 2009). These pressures
leave large scale global issues
terrorism, climate change, peak oil, global poverty

in the background, even if they may be learning about them at school. There is
knowledge and awareness, there is engagement, passion and anger, but action tends
to be confined to making reflexive choices in the search for individual ontological
security (Giddens 1991).
Dealing with individualised life trajectory risks is legitimised by experts in young
people’s lives
a hierarchisation of risk. Action becomes confined to the manage-
ment of these risks, which the young people also feel that they have some actual
control over
a prioritisation of risk. The relationship between legitimising
discourses that produce a risk hierarchy and the resulting individual risk prioritisa-
tion engenders self-discipline as a form of governmentality. When faced with the
ambivalences inherent in a risk society, the reflexive quest for order is govern-
mentalised.
As Cohen (2010) points out, challenges emerge for emancipatory ecological
politics in the ambivalence between a move towards sustainability and rival societal
aspirations pertaining to individual needs and wants in a consumer culture where
ease and speed are cherished (see Urry 2003 on ‘path dependency’ in this regard). In
regard to the two track thinking presented here, young people do feel responsible for
the future in both tracks. Individualised neo-liberal subjectivity legitimises their
focus on reflexive choices and actions in regard to their personal lives and ambitions.
But, as expressed by the frustration shown in regard to inaction about environmental
issues and the stereotyped representations of young people who do take political
action, governmental discourses delegitimise young people’s political engagement
whilst obfuscating the real extent of the coming crises (Hamilton 2010, McCright
and Dunlap 2010). The ambivalent disjuncture experienced by young people between
their individual ambitions and their apocalyptic visions of the future are therefore
normalised, even for those who are suspicious or critical of consumer culture and
environmental degradation. While it is difficult to predict what will happen in an
increasingly complex future, at the moment this would seem to pose a significant
problem for a politics or social movement to emerge that will effectively deal with
these issues (see Urry 2011 for an overview). It seems no matter how much
information or ‘awareness’ individuals possess, action outside of regulating one’s
own consumption seems unlikely except for a ‘radical’ few.
 Journal of Youth Studies 29

Concluding remarks
Again, while it is difficult to predict what will happen in the future, the possibility of
the young people’s politics of doubt (Beck 1997) towards environmental collapse
transforming into a form of political practice is itself doubtful in the ambivalent
realm of two track thinking. Based on their actions and practices expressed in this
research, while young people may vote ‘green’ and some may regulate their own
consumption, it seems unlikely that a majority of young people will engage in direct
political action. Even among the more engaged and radicalised, they feel that any
effort they make will be ignored, marginalised or ridiculed. While this may seem a
pessimistic conclusion, it resonates with the conclusions of other studies that engage
with current practices and the possibility that social and political change will happen
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in a timely enough fashion to prevent crisis. Some of the most recent interventions
about climate change, for instance, maintain that the time has gone to speak of
avoidance of change, that change is happening and will happen further, and we have
reached the stage where we now need to focus on limiting the severity of change while
preparing for the social consequences (see Dennis and Urry 2009, Urry 2011, White
2011).
Ellis (2004) proposes that when it comes to young people’s perceptions of the
barriers to positive social change, there tends to be three themes: ‘It’s not my
problem
it does not affect me or those around me’; ‘It’s not my responsibility
it’s
the job of authorities such as governments and human rights organisations’ and
‘Powerlessness
nothing I could do could make a difference’. These are useful
constructs to interpret the data here. While a harsh judgement, ‘It’s not my problem’
does seem somewhat apparent in the way the focus group participants here did not
connect personal futures to global problems. ‘It’s not my responsibility’ was apparent
in the tendency to focus blame on governments and multinational corporations.
However, as analytical categories, Ellis’ first two themes only capture the outcome
of the complex attitudes and feelings expressed towards environmental and
technological discourses that are the result of her third category. This was especially
so when there were examples of personal responsibility in terms of minimising
consumption and expressions of deep concern for those in poverty. At the heart of
contemporary reflexivity is a heightened awareness that mastery of risk, in terms of
both self-actualisation and over nature, is impossible (Latour 2003, p. 36). Therefore,
Ellis’ third theme
powerlessness
seems to be the best way to interpret these
findings. This should not be surprising and should not be confused with moral panics
directed towards young people condemning them for apathy and irresponsibility. It is
a realistic response to the symbiotic relationship between the poverty of the field of
politics and the sensationalist vapidity of its media representation. Powerlessness
(and even active resistance to it) may be expressed by young people in all manner of
ways ranging from serious social problems to ironic forms of leisure practice to
general ambivalence: high suicide rates (Fullagar 2003), depression and social
withdrawal (Furlong 2008); alcohol and drug use; riots, violence, vandalism or
graffiti (McDonald 1999, pp. 139
154); in regulating everyday consumption
practices; or in hedonistic, ironic and cynical attitudes that may be the formation
of Baudrillardian fatal strategies. This sense of political powerlessness seems likely to
continue whilst young people’s rights are continually abused, they are treated as
 30 S. Threadgold

scapegoats and blamed for all manner of things in the omnipresent media moral
panics about them, and they are constantly talked about rather than to or with.

Notes
1. Actions included under this label range from joining a mass movement to reach IPCC
targets by 2050; drastically reducing one’s own carbon footprint; or joining grass roots
movements like Transition Towns. Further, I would include an array of sociological theories
such as ecological modernisation, green capitalism and so forth under this label as well. In
this sense, an emancipatory politics in regard to coming environmental issues takes the
science on climate change as settled and is taken as a given that climate change is ‘real’, that
the problems are induced by human activity, and that there is coming nexus of problems
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involving climate change, peak oil and food production that requires rapid and substantial
action in the very near future to avoid (if it is not too late already). For a detailed overview
of this see Urry (2011).
2. Subheading refers to a song by REM, from the album Document (1987).
3. I would like to emphasise here that this is a simplified working example of day-to-day risk
calculus where there are many ‘tracks’ in a complex and concurrent interplay between the
‘present centred’ and the ‘future orientated’ (Woodman 2011).

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