Rhizomatic Protest, Generational Affinity and Digital Refuge Southeast Asia’s New Youth Movements

Across Southeast Asia, the resurgence of authoritarianism has met with stiff resistance from a new generation of activist youth. Rejecting established political factions and the conventional roles and repertoires of student movements, they pioneer new protest movements that are reimagined as a generational struggle against entrenched authoritarianism, challenging the political norms that sustain dynastic and oligarchic regimes. In doing so, they experiment with digitally mediated, participatory modes of action that facilitate more inclusive participation and allow them to forge new linkages across national and sectoral borders. This gives rise to rhizomatic assemblages of protest that connect multiple nodes of youth activism across the region. The rhizomatic nature of this youth resistance heightens their resilience to state repression by sustaining spaces of hope. Moreover, it stimulates cross-fertilisation of protest issues and repertoires, and new political discourses and practices that engender significant micro-level transformations in political norms and values.