Participating in the impasse? The cruel optimism of the youth participatory democratic project fantasy

Participatory research often claims to inspire and empower young people to change their lives and communities but what if the problems are entrenched, and the world remains intransigent? The article draws on Berlant's ideas of fantasy, cruel optimism and the impasse to navigate the ethics of mobilising and managing young people's aspirations for change in adverse, austerity contexts. Naming the youth participatory democratic project (YPDP) is a useful concept for understanding youth experiences of deflation in a creative, arts-based participatory project. The YPDP works with marginalised young people but is a professionalising, institutionalising fantasy that proscribes the transgressive activism and infrastructural practices of care and solidarity that such communities have required to realise change. To help navigate the impasse, the article presents two fantasies. One outlines the Mental Health Movement project, the other is an alternative and speculative youth state that builds infrastructures of support for young people to organise amidst adversity.