Jorge Elicécer Martínez Posada
jmartinezp2@gmail.com
Universidad de la Salle, Colombia
CINDE- Universidad de Manizales, Colombia

Diego Fernando Barragan Giraldo
diegomundante@hotmail.com
Universidad de la Salle, Colombia
CINDE- Universidad de Manizales, Colombia

Abstract:

The present article assumes the thesis that current youth movements can be understood from the category of “crowd.” To deal with this thesis, the article first presents a genealogical approximation to the concept of youth. In this section, a general presentation is given about how historically in the West, youth has been understood from a privileged, not exclusive perspective based on the conception of pubescence, adolescence, medieval young people, industrial young workers and post-industrial youth; the article also insists on the way that social moratorium is understood in relation to youth. In the second part, the text deals with the concept of crowds based on the theoretical approaches by Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt and Paolo Virno. It examines crowds from three perspectives: the philosophical and positive, the concept of class, and the idea of power. The article ends with a presentation of a few guidelines for reflection around youth movements from the viewpoint of crowds.

Keywords: crowd(s), youth, empire, subject, movements