Youth repertoires and cosmopolitan horizons in a deeply divided context

This article explores how young people reimagine social relations and negotiate difference within a deeply divided social context. It asks if ‘situated cosmopolitanism’ where particular identity and belonging is combined with shared horizons and universalistic ideals, is relevant in these circumstances, and if so what form it takes. We explore these questions in a wide-ranging study with 52 participants in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland between 2014 and 2022. Using interviews, focus groups and a deliberative café method, we analyse how young people construct forms of situated cosmopolitanism from a national standpoint, qualifying it to make divisions less important. We argue that ‘friendly conversation’ is a key mechanism by which shared horizons are constructed by young people, who reframe their party political choices and constitutional preferences in universalist ways, open to understanding and reflection. Two questions arise for political parties and conflict. The first is what impact this has on party representation and party policies over time. The second is what policy interventions can let this make a positive impact, reducing polarisation. Our study does not address the first question but does address the second. It has important implications for government policymakers given the demonstrable appetite among young people to explore diversity and division. We show the potential in engaging with the issues, the need to initiate deliberative arenas for informal friendly conversations among the young, and to reframe divisive national and constitutional debate in terms of the sorts of shared values that we have analysed.