Youths, the religious and the political: towards a reflexive research agenda

Abstract

This text critically analyzes the emergent literature that has researched the youth, religion and politics in Mexico. The literature’s background, its methodological-empirical foci and gaps, as well as its theoretical bases and biases, are pointed out. Based on this critical assessment, the paper proposes a reflexive research agenda on the youth, the religious and the political that must not only research the youth populations that have been left out in the current approaches, but also be critical and reflexive about the normative framework of modernity and its taken-for-granted principle of autonomous societal spheres. This research agenda is put forward as one that can contribute to debates about structure and agency, the nature and scope of secularization, as well as the historical becoming of our presents.