Political chronotopes of youth engagement: Towards more inclusive and enabling environments

n this chapter we study the institutional and youth cultural forms of youth political engagement in five Arab Mediterranean countries: Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Lebanon. Through triangulation of the data from the SAHWA Youth Survey 2016 (2017) and the SAHWA Ethnographic Fieldwork 2015, our aim is to analyse the experiences of political engagement by the Arab Mediterranean youth in the “post-Arab Spring era”. The data are analysed by applying Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of chronotopes. Our analysis gives evidence that there exist generational gaps in political engagement and dialogue. The time-spaces where youth agency can prosper are the physical and virtual streets and coffee shops that also enable identity construction outside tradition, authority and family (i.e. older generations).