Animating the Sharing Economy: Youth Perspectives on Economic Change in Amazonia

This article brings a youth-centred perspective to a long-debated anthropological subject: the clashes between sharing and money economies, and the challenges faced by those transitioning between the two. We focus on the experiences of young Amazonians who left subsistence-based rural lifestyles to access urban livelihoods built upon waged labour. Drawing on participatory methodologies – specifically, coproduction of ethnographic animation – we engage the participants in a process of auto-ethnographic reflection, revealing how they theorise economic change and the moral conflicts that emerge in the process. We argue that young migrants undergoing these shifts actively questions key values on personhood, being and becoming they had so far taken for granted, while also identifying tangible solutions to mediate between sharing values and individualistic gain. As such, this youth-centred approach can not only generate new knowledge on economic transitions from a youth-centred angle, but also inform more effective solutions towards economic justice.