In these moments after the world turned its eyes towards Ferguson, and reading essays that have come forth analyzing and urging that such testimonies of violence (at individual, community, state, and social levels) be catalyzed into political action, I think about how my work can become a part of that. I wrestle with the tension between the local and the global in fomenting social and political impact. I have thought deeply about and discussed scales of inquiry, generally situating my work closer to the local. I recognize the hegemonic power of global and intertwining forces of force, capitalism, and discourse to create circuits of oppression. Keeping this in mind, I work towards troubling the power imbalance between the local and the global by strengthening and networking local sites of inclusive and responsive self-governance.

What I see in what has been going on over the last ten days in Ferguson, is a rupture in the social reproduction of the racist, rapidly militarizing, and inequity fuelling state that is revealing its hypocrisy around issues of democracy and the equal respect for human life. Jumping off of Butigan’s questions regarding how to leverage this moment for political organizing, I ask: How can these events disrupt local, national, and international discourse (especially when people in Turkey are offering tips to residents in Ferguson on how to handle tear gas)? How can these events be leveraged for political organizing in action? How can this political organizing and action jump scales from local to the global? It is heartening to see that since Michael Brown was murdered, people from across the US have been connecting it to the many sites of violence against black and brown bodies (and other marginalized people), and the national policy to militarize of local law enforcement. How can we then network these localized sites of indignation, alter discourse, change the course of social reproduction, and reconstitute our governance structures so that they actually respond to the demands of its citizenry for a more just and dignity-affirming society?

Undoubtedly, any work I do will be a humble contribution as no one idea, text or act can be offered as a comprehensive panacea. Still, I hope that my work to better understand and build local mechanisms for young people’s participation in the governance of their communities is but one way to contribution to this. Just by simply talking about and writing about young people’s participation in governance, I hope to disrupt or at least insert into the discourse that young people and governance are not mutually exclusive subjects. I hope to better understand the different tactics through which young people are already engaging in community governance so as to support them in altering systems and structures to become more inclusive and democratic. By changing local level discourse and structures, and connecting with different scales of discourse in action, I hope to counter the tokenism that is constantly offered to young people in monocultural, global forums so as to so as to produce processes and systems that are truly democratic.