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Carles Feixa, anthropologist: "With young people, quarrels do not work, but rather make them see that the injured will be their grandparents"

2020-10-23T02:43:16.017Z


"The mistake has been not to make the youth co-responsible for the lack of refinement", says the professor and coordinator of the Network on Youth and Society


Carles Feixa is Professor of Social Anthropology at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona and coordinator of the Network on Youth and Society, in which experts from a dozen campuses participate.

Data from the National Epidemiological Surveillance Network show that the 15 to 30-year-old group is, by far, the one that registers the most infections each week since the outbreak began.

Feixa, born in Lleida 58 years ago, regrets that in these months the authorities have not resorted to their discipline.

"They have focused exclusively on epidemiological and health aspects without taking into account the need to investigate social aspects and, in particular, how young people are behaving and how changes can be made to reduce infections," he says.

Question.

Why do young people behave during the epidemic as they are doing?

Answer.

There are several factors.

Youth is the phase of opening to public space and relationships in which, in order to disconnect from the family environment, other social contacts are sought.

To a large extent, moreover, they are asymptomatic.

They pass the disease in many cases without noticing it, while in older people there are usually more consequences.

P.

Does the lack of fear influence the fact of knowing that if they are infected with their disease, surely it will not be serious?

R.

More than selfishness, I think it responds to the culture of risk.

Young people seek to explore, and putting themselves at risk is attractive.

This has an adaptive function that in normal situations is positive.

It is the way for them to seek life and emancipate themselves.

But in a pandemic there is an added risk that has to be taken into account and has not been done.

If they were the key sector for the transmission of the virus, they had to be cared for in some way, and they were forgotten.

Q.

In what sense?

R.

The public authorities forgot about young people during the confinement because they did not cause problems.

They were the ones who best adapted, in part because of their connection to cyberculture, a field in which they helped the elderly, and because of what we can call the culture of the room.

And when the lack of refinement arrived, they were forgotten again.

The mistake has been not to count on them for a strategy of accountability and co-management of deconfinement.

Having treated them in a childish way, on the one hand blaming them and on the other with fights.

That doesn't work with youth.

Responsibility works.

Make them aware that if they do not take action, the injured will not be anonymous people, but from their environment, their grandparents.

P.

How should one act?

R.

Young people experience presentism, also because in this society, in general, it is impossible for them to plan a future in the medium or long term.

But there is also a trend in youth culture towards a quieter, slower leisure, which is connected with the concern for sustainability and climate change.

In this way, in which young people have shown leadership, they could be attracted.

Make them the protagonists of changes that include a slowdown in social relationships.

There is a need for a great intergenerational pact in which young people can propose solutions, which not only tell them what to do.

Q.

Can you convince them not to socialize without a mask?

A. It

could become fashionable.

Just as they are attracted to tattoos, piercings and other elements that we might consider uncomfortable, if the mask is worked well it could be another of the elements incorporated into their body that make them feel better.

Q.

Who can influence them?

R.

They must be the contemporaries, people of their age.

Some might be influencers, but it's more of a micro issue.

That in each group of friends someone introduce these innovations.

Without ruling out that in extreme cases you have to limit things, the leadership of someone like them who makes them see that it is for the benefit of all is much more effective than the anger of the teacher, the father or the police.

Q.

Would the curfew be useful to control young people?

R.

In the first place, it would be necessary to look for another denomination that did not have warlike connotations.

And it is possible that certain social practices go underground, and instead of the bottle in the public space, which is scandalous, they move to parties in apartments, even more dangerous.

If a certain level of transmission is breached, perhaps another confinement would be more efficient.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-10-23

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