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<p>List of Figures vii</p> <p>Series Editors’ Preface x</p> <p>Preface xi</p> <p><b>Introduction: Voices From Montreal 2</b></p> <p>Space–Time–Affect: The Urban Logic of Political Action 5</p> <p>Acting Aesthetically: Political Gestures, Political Acts, and Political Action 10</p> <p>Youth Urban Worlds 21</p> <p>The Global Urban Political Moment of the 2010s: Youthfulness in Action 26</p> <p>Montreal in a World of Cities 29</p> <p>A Methodological Note 31</p> <p>The Organization of the Book 34</p> <p>Notes 36</p> <p><b>1 Montreal and the Urban Moment 38</b></p> <p>Montreal’s Politico‐Sensuous Feel 41</p> <p>Montreal’s Place in the Global Urban Cultures of the 1960s and 1970s 49</p> <p>Changing Relations to Time 52</p> <p>Changing Relations to Space 54</p> <p>Conclusion 61</p> <p>Notes 64</p> <p><b>2 The Urban Political World of Racialized Youth: Moving Through and Being Moved By Saint‐Michel and Little Burgundy 69</b></p> <p>Moving Through Saint‐Michel and Little Burgundy with an Epistemology of Blackness 75</p> <p>Being Moved: Representations and Affective Aesthetic Relations 88</p> <p>Racialization: Disembodied Profiling Entangled With Embodied Racist Encounters 94</p> <p>Conclusion 98</p> <p>Notes 101</p> <p><b>3 The Urban Political World of Student Strikers 107</b></p> <p>Becoming a Striker: Pregnant Moments ‘Breaking the Real’ 110</p> <p>Walking the City: Space During and After the Strike 117</p> <p>The Political Effects of Seduction and Provocation 123</p> <p>Conclusion 133</p> <p>Notes 135</p> <p><b>4 The Urban Political World of Urban Farmers: ‘It’s Not Just Growing Food, It’s a Lot More Than That’ 143</b></p> <p>Embodied Experiences of the Spatialities and Circulation of Food Commodities in the City 150</p> <p>The Urban Logic of Action of Urban Agriculture Practices 157</p> <p>Seduction and Attraction in the Garden 161</p> <p>Conclusion 164</p> <p>Notes 165</p> <p><b>5 The Urban Political World of ‘Risk‐Takers’: Provocative Choreographic Power 169</b></p> <p>The Risk‐Management Context 171</p> <p>Urban Dancers and Diviners: Choreographic Power as Political Action 172</p> <p>Voluntary Risk‐Takers? Fear and Youth Politics 177</p> <p>Collective Edgework: Distributed Agency Through Provocation and Seduction 186</p> <p>Conclusion 192</p> <p>Notes 193</p> <p><b>Conclusion 198</b></p> <p>Forms of Aesthetic Politics Influenced by Youthfulness and Contemporary Conditions of Urbanity 201</p> <p>Montreal in a World of Cities 206</p> <p>Note 207</p> <p>References 208</p> <p>Index 220</p>

<p><b>Julie-Anne Boudreau</b> holds a Doctorate in Urban Planning from the University of California in Los Angeles. She is Professor at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique in Montreal, where she held the Canada Research Chair in urbanity, insecurity, and political action from 2005-2015. </p> <p> </p> <p><b>Joëlle Rondeau</b> holds a master’s degree in Urban Studies from the National Institute of Scientific Research in Montreal. She is pursuing a doctoral degree in Indigenous Studies at Trent University, focusing on the urban food transformation and the resurgence of Indigenous foodways and governance systems. </p>

<p><i>Youth Urban Worlds: Aesthetic Political Action in Montreal</i> grapples with the interaction between urban environments and cultures and the political process. Authors Boudreau and Rondeau argue persuasively that urban cultures challenge the very meaning and contours of the political process. With ethnographies delving into the perspectives and knowledges of racialized youth, urban farmers, and “voluntary risk takers,” like dumpster divers, building climbers, and student protestors, <i>Youth Urban Worlds </i>theorizes aesthetics as an increasingly crucial form of political action in the contemporary urban setting. <br /><br />This interdisciplinary work, weaving together aspects of philosophy, critical geography, political sociology, urban anthropology, urban studies, and cultural studies, examines the centrality of fun, warmth, aesthetics, and embodiment to these youth’s experiences of being in the world. Aesthetics serves as the predominant lens through which the lived reality of the subjects of the book is understood. It also explains how youth are able to practically and concretely impact the political process through the performance of risky and disruptive behavior. Moving from a contemporary history of urban Montreal from 1960, to an ethnographic description of the realities of urban youth in that city today, <i>Youth Urban Worlds</i> describes and explains the impact of aesthetics on the political. </p>

‘This ethnographically immersive book draws you into a world of slam poets and urban farmers, skateboarders and graffiti artists, attending to the embodied forces of attraction that animate youth political action. Examining charged urban experiences such as student protests and police encounters, Boudreau and Rondeau show the transformative power of youth aesthetics, revealing the hidden traditions of experience they cultivate.’<br /><b>Asher Ghertner, Rutgers University, USA<br /><br /></b>‘This book’s rich, textured text captures Montreal urban inhabitants consciously theorizing the space they live and experience. That the main interlocutors are young(er) folks, in dialogue with scholars, but as equals - at least as equal as is possible under the circumstances - makes for a remarkable expression of urban agency and transgression in the face of repression, incertitude, and the absence of absolutes.’<br /><b>David Austin, author of  <i>Dread Poetry and Freedom: Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Unfinished Revolution</i> (2018) and <i>Fear of a Black Nation: Race, Sex and Security in Sixties Montreal</i>, winner of 2014 Casa de las Americas Prize</b>

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