Becoming AGENDA: The Making and Mattering of a Youth Activist Resource on Gender and Sexual Violence

Abstract

What happens when ‘the margin of manouverability’ (Massumi 2015, p.3) in a specific socio-political context is buzzing with promise and possibility? What might some crafty and serious play with the feminist posthuman ethics of research/er reponse-ability (Barad, 2007) cook up in such a conducive soup? This paper shares the pARTicipatory praxis that informed the making of ‘AGENDA: A Young People’s Guide to Making Positive Relationships Matter’ (Renold, 2016). AGENDA is a 75 page youth-activist bi-lingual (Welsh-English) interactive resource co-created with and for young people in Wales to address gendered and sexual violence. Crafted with an affirmative cut and nurturing a run-a-way praxis that secretes its own co-ordinates, AGENDA invites a care-ful re-mattering of ‘what matters’ when it comes to conventional healthy relationships education. The paper offers a careful cartography of how AGENDA unfolded as a lively resource that continues to matter as it connects to policy and practice assemblages that push-pull the agential becomings of AGENDA on its way.