Gen-BZ: Materializing Linguistic Dissent of Diasporic Youth Through Political Design

Can political design challenge deeply rooted linguistic and cultural divisions? “Gen-BZ” addresses this question in South Tyrol, an autonomous region in northern Italy where institutionalized trilingualism coexists with entrenched ethnolinguistic separation. Conducted in collaboration with three high schools, the research investigated how diasporic youth inhabit a multilingual environment in which official languages retain authority while heritage ones remain peripheral. Drawing on Participatory Action Research (PAR) and adopting political design as a methodological lens, the research developed a diary-based cultural probe, a spatial installation, and a collaboratively assembled zine. These design research methods helped trace how young people negotiate belonging through everyday linguistic practices that are sometimes explicitly critical and sometimes nonpolitical. The article advances an understanding of design’s potential to expose ethnolinguistic hegemonies while foregrounding the agency of diasporic youth in shaping their own narratives.