This chapter analyses the utopian possibilities of the British counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. Countercultural aesthetics and politics responded to contemporary crises in urban planning, ecological destruction, and fractured identities of nation and class – issues that remain pressing in the twenty-first century. Tracing the origins of post-punk utopianism, the chapter argues that the ambiguity of the British counterculture’s utopian possibilities may be explored via an excavation of its class basis. Drawing on the work of Raymond Williams, Ernst Bloch, and Herbert Marcuse, the chapter analyses the 1974 BBC TV play Penda’s Fen. It suggests that Penda’s Fen contains conflicting utopian visions, reflecting the differing class factions that comprised the counterculture and anticipated the neoliberal present of twenty-first-century Britain. The chapter concludes by suggesting that this iconic TV play has lessons to teach us in the contemporary moment. Its class politics, which explores homosexual desire between working-class and middle-class characters, offers a utopian image of cross-class solidarity and sexuality set against the backdrop of a mythic vision of Britain.

The Conclusion recaps the conceptual themes of the book, emphasising the need for scholars to renew their focus upon the intertwined nature of kinship, class, and capital not only in the empirical study of capitalism on the African continent, but in anthropology where the study of kinship has veered away from questions of inheritance and property since the 1980s, a subject to which it is only now returning. It recaptures the book’s emphasis on the erosion of moral economies under conditions of land’s commodification, and the way this shapes the pauperisation of junior kin.

The Introduction sets the scene for the book’s chapters and analysis. On the northern periphery of Nairobi, in southern Kiambu County, the city’s expansion into a landscape of poor smallholders is bringing new opportunities, dilemmas, and conflicts. Profoundly shaped by Kenya’s colonial history, Kiambu’s ‘workers with patches of land’ struggle to sustain their households while the skyrocketing price of land ratchets up gendered and generational tensions over their meagre plots, with consequences for class futures. Land sale by senior men turns would-be inheritors, their young adult sons, into landless and land-poor paupers, heightening their exposure to economic precarity. The Introduction sets out how these dynamics are lived at the site of kinship, and how moral principles of patrilineal obligation and land retention fail in the face of market opportunity. Within this context, the Introduction sets out the book’s exploration of how Kiambu’s young men struggle to sustain hopes for middle-class lifestyles as the economic ground shifts beneath their feet.

Chapter 2 turns towards the neighbourhood of Ituura. It introduces my field site in detail by exploring cases of local youth who are said to have been ‘wasted’ by alcoholism. In contrast to those who are said to have ‘given up’ on their futures, other young men are shown to embrace discourses of moral fortitude to sustain their hopes for the future while working for low, piecemeal wages in the informal economy. Such youth claim that one must be ‘bold to make it’. Engaging with anthropological discussion on waithood and hope, the chapter shows how young men cultivate moral fortitude through an ethics of endurance – a hope for hope itself, a way of sustaining belief in their own long-term futures that involves economising practices, prayer, and avoidance of one’s peers who are seen to be a source of temptation and pressure to consume.

The emergence of British punk in the mid-1970s led to a reimagining of the fanzine, home-made magazines self-published and self-distributed to fellow ‘fans’ within a particular cultural milieu. Where fanzines had previously been carefully collated and geared towards disseminating information, punk’s fanzines were produced speedily and irreverently. In line with the cultural critique inherent to punk, fanzines such as Sniffin’ Glue and London’s Outrage began to develop literary and visual discourses locating ‘the new wave’ within a wider socio-cultural and political context. Expositions on punk’s meaning and the media-generated moral panic that ensued following the Sex Pistols’ infamously foul-mouthed television appearance in December 1976 soon led to formative political analyses on everything from racism and commodification to anarchy and gender relations. By the early 1980s, anarchist punkzines engaged with a variety of political causes (e.g. CND) and recognisably feminist and socialist analyses found space between record and gig reviews. This chapter examines a selection of punk-related fanzines to argue that the medium provided space for young people (overwhelmingly teenagers) to test and cultivate political ideas and, in the process, develop a distinct genre of writing informed by punk’s impulse to simultaneously destroy and create.

Chapter 7 describes the fortunes of Mwaura three years on from the original fieldwork. It draws attention to heightened anxieties about social breakdown illuminated by the author’s host family’s own breaking apart, and two deaths – one of a neighbourhood youth, and another of a neighbourhood elder, the same young man’s father. This ethnographic epilogue crystallises key issues brought out throughout the book: male struggles with alcoholism, anxieties about downward social mobility, the damaging effects of family breakdown, and contestation over landed futures.

The case study discusses how the endemic nature of race and racism affects Black individuals’ level of trust in the medical system. The case begins with highlighting several past legacies of exploitation as well as contemporary experiences of discrimination in health care, which set the stage for medical distrust. It also presents disparities in several health outcomes. The case study then presents the experience of a Black family, who because of their lack of trust in the medical system was accused of, and reported to Child Welfare for medically neglecting their daughter. Inspired by CRT, the social worker in the case understood that Black and other marginalized families are often disproportionately targeted and face harsher judgments in child welfare cases. This informed her engagement with the family. Through this case, the author made the argument that without acknowledging systemic racism, biases are more likely to influence the classification of neglect, leading to interventions that do not address a family’s needs or mistakenly involves them with the child welfare system.

This conclusion reflects on the legacy of the Democrat Party in the aftermath of the 1960 coup. I argue that the removal of Turkey’s elected government by military officers did not mark the end of democratic politics in Turkey. Rather, it was part of a larger process of de-democratization in which Turkish leaders (first the Democrats, then the military and its allies) restricted the various institutions that enabled meaningful political contestation. Democracy was effectively rolled back during the 1950s because the achievements of Turkey’s “transition to democracy” were of a limited sort; they included independently verified elections, a narrow range of permitted political parties, and a relatively circumscribed press. If the DP failed to consistently defend and expand the institutions that bolster democracy, then perhaps its greatest legacy is the way in which it positioned Turkey in relation to other states. The DP presented the country as an essential part of the American order, willing to fight and, thus, deserving of significant financial support.

Self-harm and suicidal behaviours in children and young people are increasingly common. These behaviours sit on a broad continuum from relatively risk-free behaviours that may be used as coping mechanisms to life-threatening acts with suicidal intent. Self-harm is more likely in patients with co-morbid mental health conditions, but most young people who self-harm do not have a mental health diagnosis. Family adversity, educational stressors, physical health illnesses, bullying, and substance misuse may all increase the risk of self-harm. Young people may find internet support groups helpful as they may value the discretion of online support for a behaviour about which they may be embarrassed. However some internet sites teach young people more dangerous self-harming strategies and young people may be bullied or encouraged to complete suicide. Historical methods of risk stratification have poor predictive validity and it is instead recommended that clinicians engage collaboratively with young people in an individualised approach to risk assessment, developing a detailed risk formulation and safety plan. Young people who self-harm are 30 times more likely to die by suicide, and it appears that those from minority groups are at greater risk. Mild self-harm may only require a ‘listening ear’ from a trusted friend or adult, but more severe difficulties may need professional assistance from mental health services that should be trauma-informed and relational in approach, offering evidence-based interventions such as DBT-A or MBT-A. Crisis services should be responsive and flexible to young people’s needs so as to be able to engage them and de-escalate risks effectively.

Chapter 7 involves an analysis of the 2019 case brought to the UN committee on the rights of the child by 16 young people (Saachi et al. 2019). The case is assessed in terms of its legitimacy and effectiveness in promoting intergenerational justice discourses and its capacity to act as an indirect proxy representative for future generations. The chapter argues that while there are distinct limitations in the rights of the child complaints system (with an asymmetry in power between children and the states involved, with decisions being non-binding), the Saachi case, nevertheless, has the potential to have both a political and legal impact. It is one of the few avenues at the international level which allows young people increasingly impacted by climate change to have a voice. It can also allow young people to act as proxy representatives for future generations, while the Committee to date has been reticent to move in this direction. Finally, some elements of the decision are likely to be taken up in future climate litigation at the international and national levels.

This chapter reviews recent anthropological studies of adolescence and youth. Some of the earliest research in psychological anthropology focused on this lifespan period. This early work insisted that social and cultural factors shaped the varieties of adolescent experiences both within and across societies, and that the social problems of youth were a political problem rather than an inevitable outcome of a universal life stage. Systematic research on adolescence and youth did not emerge until the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. These studies are organized into four themes: (1) adolescence as a liminal period; (2) adolescent vulnerabilities that result from social, political, and economic disruptions; (3) young people as instigators and innovators of social change; and (4) young people's social worlds as worthy research topics in themselves. The chapter calls for future research on young people that focuses on individual experiences within larger systems of power, such as the historical legacies of Western imperialism. Attending to these larger systems of power will provide greater awareness of how these systems shaped past research.