Student activism, translocality, and social justice

This introductory article frames the Globalisation, Societies and Education special issue on ‘Student activism, translocality and social justice.’ We discuss the three central concepts – student activism, translocality, and social justice – and consider how they intersect in contemporary student political engagement. Rather than restricting student activism to large-scale protest events, we highlight how it also takes shape through everyday practices, digital repertoires, and affective modes of organising. We trace a shift from episodic understandings of protest toward more ecological and translocal perspectives that foreground the multi-directional, multi-scalar and situated relations through which students assemble solidarities and rework political subjectivities. In this framing, social justice is understood as a contested and situated political project that is negotiated, articulated and enacted differently across contexts. Bringing together empirical studies from diverse sites, the special issue illustrates how student activism oriented toward social justice is formed through, and contributes to, broader dynamics of global interconnection and struggle.