‘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

Abstract

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 governmentality. 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.