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Political Proxies: Gender-diverse young people’s alternative paths to politics in South-East Asia and Australia

Elise Stephenson

It is not new to claim that previous conceptions of gender and political life have been limited by a singular focus on women or men, and in a binary and heteronormative fashion. Yet, queering the study of gender and politics—particularly in the cases of South-East Asia and Australia—remains largely underdone. To ‘queer’ research on gender and politics enables the production of new knowledge and exposes the limits of relatively insular disciplinary conversations and conceptualisations.

This chapter therefore invites a deconstruction of political power by studying the alternative paths to politics across several axes of diversity: youth, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and disability. It shows that while too often excluded from formal institutions that are accorded the title of ‘politics’, young diverse and marginalised groups are hardly politically inactive. Through alternative forms of political participation via ‘proxies’, diverse young people both reflect the constraints of current archetypical political systems and prise open constructive gaps. They can—and do—make themselves heard through non-traditional political means, with mixed results in gaining traditional political effects. Where traditional political impact is witnessed, it is to significant effect. Where traditional political impact is not evidenced or possible, ongoing challenges are highlighted in translating power to the margins. Yet, that does not leave the margins powerless, as individual and communal forms of power are wielded, even without traditional political representation.

This research finds diverse young people need not be engaged in traditional politics to be deeply political. Proxies for traditional political participation exist, such as through non-profit organisations, creative arts or entrepreneurship. This allows young people to wield substantial individual and communal levels of power and, at times, also impact broader traditional and structural politics and society. Yet, proxies have limits. Restricting historically marginalised groups ‘only’ to these spheres replicates existing power structures that exclude them from traditional politics. Further, a devaluation of these institutions is evident, resulting in further social capital and economic inequalities. Ultimately, the ability to be engaged in any political action—traditional or through novel or informal means—is a privilege.

The implications of this research are threefold. First, young people are not (just) disengaged, passive victims of a hierarchical political structure, but are political actors in their own right. Second, to support more diverse voices in politics, those recruited for politics and supported into the political pipeline could and should come through much more diverse means. Seeking out or supporting those already active in political ‘proxies’ may be one such avenue of recruitment. Third, traditional politics still matters, but it is not all that matters. Studies of gender and politics must do better to incorporate alternative paths to and practices of politics.

Ultimately, the concept of a ‘path to politics’ fails to incorporate the true nature of how young diverse people see their political representation and political action—as multidimensional and not constrained only to established paths and political norms. Further, there are several possibilities that come from queering the gender and politics literature: challenging the heteronormative domination of feminist and non-feminist understandings of politics, and ‘seeing’ those who have been minoritised and marginalised even within gender studies.

An insider’s account: A pracademic, critical feminist friend approach

Being a scholar-entrepreneur or ‘pracademic’ first inspired this semi-insider account of diverse young people’s paths to political influence across Australia and South-East Asia. Walker describes two facets necessary for a pracademic:

1. A solid grounding in experience in the field to appreciate nuances and subtle signals that the environment emits and 2. Rigorous academic research and reflective analysis training to be able to make sense of situations encountered and to be able to probe deeply into causal issues and to understand implications for practice. (Walker 2010: 2)

From 2017 to 2020, I travelled more than 75,000 kilometres by road around Australia while completing my PhD and running a social enterprise I co-founded, which worked with non-profits, activists and social entrepreneurs across rural and regional Australia, as well as across South-East Asia. My PhD was in women’s leadership in international affairs, while the work I was leading with my enterprise encompassed running youth-led, youth-focused public diplomacy programs for Australia’s premier public diplomacy initiative, ‘Australia now’. The point where my research and entrepreneurial work intersects inspired this chapter, which shares research on the alternative paths to politics, power and social impact for young gender-diverse individuals across Australia and South-East Asia.

While my approach to this research began in 2017, the bulk of the data informing this chapter were generated over three years from 2019 to 2022 while running a flagship public diplomacy program throughout Australia and South-East Asia, the Young Entrepreneurs and Leaders Speaker Series (funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) (Plates 4.1 and 4.2). After running 76 workshops, events and media engagements with roughly 3,600 young people throughout South-East Asia (in person in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Brunei and Malaysia, and online with the rest of the member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN) and Australia (online) about topics as diverse as gender equality, LGBTIQ+ rights, climate change, sustainability and fashion, social enterprise, human rights and more, critical key themes of young people’s activism and participation in the development of their nations that warranted analysis and sharing came to the fore. In particular, the stories of how gender and sexuality-diverse young people, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities who seldom held ‘traditional’ roles of authority were crafting policy, representing their communities in national and international forums and advocating for politics pushed me to better understand the themes I had observed.

Plate 4.1: Elise Stephenson speaking at the Young Entrepreneurs and Leaders Speaker Series engagement at UN headquarters, Hanoi, Vietnam, 2019

Source: Elise Stephenson.

Plate 4.2: Workshopping approaches to gender equality for Gender Month, Vietnam, 2019

Source: Elise Stephenson.

Subsequent to completing my final series of workshops in Malaysia in March 2022, I sought qualitative interviews with 16 young gender-diverse people to explore how they conceptualised politics and power, whether they had run for politics (or politics-adjacent forms of activism), the challenges experienced by gender, sexuality, ethnically and other diverse individuals, and what they would like to see change to allow more diverse and representative forms of political representation in the region. This ‘pracademic’ approach allowed me to anchor my scholarship and work in a practical setting, with academic credibility, tools, techniques and ways of thinking that typically set pracademic researchers apart from those without substantial experience of practice. Doing so allows this research to ‘build a bridge between theory and practice’, to understand the lived realities of young people across time, geography, political settings and individual identities (Walker 2010: 3).

To go deeper into the trends observed from the 76 workshops and events, 16 in-depth interviews were sought across a range of participants from throughout the region, seeking a broad regional picture of diversity in paths to politics, rather than case-by-case study. Participants who met the following criteria were sought over a six-week period in 2022: between 18 and 35 years of age; had run for politics, were interested in running for politics or were otherwise engaged in politics; and based in South-East Asia or Australia. Of the 16 interviewed, eight (50 per cent) identified as male, five (31 per cent) as female and three (19 per cent) as nonbinary or transgender. The average age of participants was 26, with the youngest 19 and the oldest 35 years of age. Ten (62.5 per cent) identified as ‘straight’, with six (37.5 per cent) identifying as LGBTIQ+. Four interviewees came from the Philippines, three from Indonesia, two each from Australia and Vietnam and one each from Brunei, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar. Among them, six (37.5 per cent) identified as Indigenous or from an ethnic minority. Two (12.5 per cent) identified as having a disability. Two (12.5 per cent) had run for politics and 11 (68 per cent) desired to run for politics. Participants in this chapter have been de-identified and a pseudonym has been used to share their perspectives. The ethical components of this research were granted human ethics approval through The Australian National University (Protocol 2022/359).

While a scholar-academic or pracademic approach formed the genesis of this research, I also undertook this project using a ‘critical feminist friend’ approach, allowing me to understand the gendered, racialised, heteronormative, ableist political and social institutions within which I was ‘entangled’. Critical feminist friend (Stephenson 2024; Chappell and Mackay 2021) approaches enable researchers to build collaborative, long-term relationships with the institutions studied, while maintaining autonomy, researcher integrity, an ability to ‘see clearly’ and analyse critically and align researcher and institutional goals. This approach enabled me not only to conduct observational analysis during the many workshops and events run across multiple years, but also to see opportunities to dig deeper through qualitative interviews to validate findings after completion of the speaker series.

The enmeshing of these research approaches was critical for understanding the delicate contours of minoritised young people’s experiences of politics and the political advocacy approach. Large-scale observation across the workshops and events provided me with a glimpse into the ‘everyday’ processes and practices that I would not have gleaned through interviews alone. It also provided me with an opportunity to witness the movements, creativity and entrepreneurship young people pioneered and experience it in real time. The interviews, on the other hand, allowed me to contextualise what I had observed and gain participants’ understandings of their actions, enterprises, creative processes and perspectives. While recognising that such a unique methodological approach may not be well suited to all kinds of research, it did have inherent benefits for reaching young people whose work and experiences simply may have been missed without it. Not all can access political action or research on politics in the same ways, as it may be doubly distanced from their everyday lived realities.

Understanding the context: Diversity in politics in South-East Asia and Australia

In relation to South-East Asia, Australia operates as a middle-power country, variably seen as a critical player in the region with ‘special proximity’ (Epstein 2017: 15) to South-East Asia, on the one hand, and on the other, absent and unhelpful, with Singapore’s former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew famously warning that Australia risked becoming the ‘poor white trash of Asia’ (Dobell 2015). While Australia and countries across South-East Asia may not be seen as a natural grouping of nations, all share geopolitical interests, proximity, strategic engagement and South-East Asian prioritisation in Australian foreign policy. Australia is a strategic partner to ASEAN (comprising the 10 nations studied: Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei) and ASEAN is one of Australia’s top-three trading partners (PM&C n.d.). The nations share many similar demographic features such as the underrepresentation in politics of women, LGBTIQ+, Indigenous and ethnic minority groups and people with disability, and significant youth populations or a youth ‘bulge’ impacting political outcomes. Yet, there are great differences not only between Australia and South-East Asia, but also within.

Political systems across Australia and South-East Asia vary greatly, from democracies to hybrid regimes to authoritarian states. Australia is a representative democracy, with features such as compulsory voting and enshrined values around freedoms, equality and representation in government. The Philippines and Indonesia are presidential or semi-presidential republics, which Croissant and Lorenz (2018) classify as defective democracies, where elements of their democratic systems are ‘insufficiently institutionalised’ or partial (Croissant and Merkel 2019: 439). Cambodia and Malaysia are constitutional monarchies, while Singapore and, until recently, Myanmar have parliamentary republic systems. These last four countries can be grouped as having electoral authoritarian systems (CountryReports 1997–2025). Thein-Lemelson (2021: 3) has argued that since the 2021 coup, Myanmar manifests longstanding ‘politicide’: patterns of ‘systematic violence perpetrated against political groups and social movements that challenge military control and dominance’.

At the other end of the democratic spectrum, Brunei, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand have closed autocratic systems (Croissant and Lorenz 2018). Vietnam has a single-party system governed by the Communist Party of Vietnam, like Laos, which is governed by the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party. Brunei’s context is particularly unique when considering diversity in politics, as it is an absolute monarchy where freedom of speech is highly restricted. Political participation is near impossible for those outside the royal family or regime and politics is closely tied to religion, with Islamic Sharia law implemented throughout the country (Freedom House 2020).

Great variation in political systems is evident among South-East Asian countries and this impacts the level and diversity of political participation that can be achieved. Across the countries studied in the region, according to Freedom House, Australia scores the highest on global freedom (measured by political rights and civil liberties), at 95 out of 100 in 2021, while Myanmar scores the lowest in the region with only 9 out of 100 (Freedom House n.d.).

Young people and politics

When it comes to the involvement of young people in politics across Australia and South-East Asia, states are witnessing an increased incidence of youth political activism, yet politics remains exclusionary and exclusive to youth voices. Societies in South-East Asia are traditionally paternalistic, hierarchical and male dominated, making it challenging for young people to permeate existing political structures (UNDP 2014). Velasco (2005) finds that significant institutional and societal obstacles prevent meaningful youth participation in politics. Young people are often dismissed as inexperienced or naive, and countries such as Cambodia and Indonesia lack articulated youth policies to shape and encourage political involvement (Velasco 2005). In Myanmar, Ebead and Hirakawa (2022) observe the significant impact of autocratic military rule on the marginalisation of women, youth and ethnic minorities in formal political processes. Youth (people aged 15 to 35) make up 33 per cent of Myanmar’s population and have historically spearheaded the fight against repression. Mass protests after the February 2021 military coup were partially driven by young people advocating for democratic accountability and transitional justice (Ebead and Hirakawa 2022). However, Ebead and Hirawaka (2022) identify several barriers to political participation, including sociocultural norms and perceptions, limited political awareness, financial hurdles and a lack of legal and institutional measures to encourage youth inclusion.

Socioeconomic challenges are particularly prominent in preventing young people from participating in politics in South-East Asia. A 2018 study by the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) found that marginalisation in education or employment influences inclusion in other areas of society, including civic engagement and political participation. Given that average enrolment rates for secondary and tertiary education are 77 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively, in the Asia-Pacific (ESCAP 2018), this remains a barrier to effective political participation by young people. Moreover, youth are found to be highly disenfranchised by formal politics. A study by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP 2014) finds that there is a low level of trust in institutions among young people. In Australia, trust in political institutions is falling, with Fu et al. (2021) arguing that there is a ‘democracy gap’ for Australian youth, who distrust traditional politics (but are still focused on civic-mindedness). This dissatisfaction with current political regimes is seeing young people increasingly turn to non-electoral participation in politics through social media, protests and demonstrations, as well as through other proxies for political action, as will be explored in this chapter, to make their voices heard (ESCAP 2018). Information and communication technology is expanding opportunities for youth political engagement (UNDP 2014), with this providing a possible avenue for political change driven by young people. However, social, economic and institutional barriers continue to pose a challenge for young people seeking to participate in politics in Australia and South-East Asia.

Despite the barriers, youth participation in politics has increased in recent years. In the 2019 Indonesian election, nearly half of eligible voters were aged between 17 and 35 (Siahaan 2019). This strongly influenced political parties’ campaign strategies. The creation of the Indonesian Solidarity Party (Partai Solidaritas Indonesia, PSI) in the 2019 election was specifically aimed at garnering votes from young people, with PSI advocating tolerance, human rights, democratic values, freedom of speech and greater social inclusion (Siahaan 2019). PSI failed to win a seat in the House of Representatives, however, this example still demonstrates the growing influence of youth voters on the political landscape in South-East Asia. Similarly, the Future Forward Party (FFP) established in 2018 in Thailand opposes military oppression and seeks to uphold human rights and transparency. The FFP secured 31 constituency seats in the Thai Parliament and the third-largest number of votes in the 2019 elections (Siahaan 2019)—again illustrating the impact of young people on politics. Syed Saddiq became Malaysia’s youngest cabinet minister in 2018 at age 25 and founded the Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (MUDA) in 2020. Saddiq envisions MUDA as ‘a team of great young potentials ready to change Malaysia’s political landscape’, who will build on substantial work started by Undi18, a youth-led movement that managed to successfully lower the voting age from 21 to 18 in 2019 (Anand 2022). In Australia’s 2022 federal election, young people were similarly a decisive force, voting for climate action and gender equality. The election saw the rise in ‘Teal’ independent candidates appealing to both a more diverse and a younger audience, and the re-election of one of Australia’s youngest parliamentarians, 28-year-old Senator Jordon Steele-John, a representative of the Australian Greens party and a disability rights advocate. Despite challenges, opportunities for young people to engage in politics are evident across the region, although much greater efforts are required to overcome socioeconomic, institutional and cultural barriers.

Gender and politics

While the attempt by young people to gain representation in politics in South-East Asia and Australia remains incomplete, the same is true for gender diversity, with women remaining underrepresented in formal politics in the region and trans and nonbinary individuals almost entirely unrepresented and invisible. Iwanaga (2008) argues that politics is often associated with violence, bribery and corruption, which contradicts the view that women are innocent and peaceful. Further, by enforcing gender stereotypes and expectations, patriarchal systems mean women are largely perceived as incapable of entering politics (Devasahayam 2019). Iwanaga (2008) also explores more specific individual factors, with social background, education, experience and connections impacting the ability of women to participate in politics. Where women come from low socioeconomic backgrounds or have lower educational attainment, breaking into public office is particularly difficult, highlighting the duplicative, intersecting nature of identity on the challenges experienced (Richter 1990). Where women have been successful in obtaining political leadership positions, Richter (1990) finds that this has largely been the result of familial ties to prominent male politicians. Political dynasties can facilitate women’s political leadership by legitimising their involvement on moral grounds in patriarchal systems but do not create pathways for other women from low socioeconomic backgrounds, reinforcing social divisions (Choi 2019). Further, in her book The Woman President, Vijeyarasa (2022: 254) notes that for those women who achieved the highest offices of power in Asia, ‘gender for the woman president is a second skin that cannot be shed’, with their presence in politics remaining exceptional and improbable. The most significant barriers to women’s participation in politics in Australia and South-East Asia are therefore entrenched patriarchal attitudes and norms, financial challenges and socioeconomic divisions that are reinforced by political dynasties.

LGBTIQ+ people and politics

The political representation of LGBTIQ+ people—particularly within South-East Asian and Australian contexts—has not been widely examined in the academic literature. Although some South-East Asian nations are becoming more progressive, religious and political systems and public attitudes are still significant barriers to recognition and respect for LGBTIQ+ people and their rights (Root 2022), and political participation is unattainable for the LGBTIQ+ community in much of the region. ASEAN has pledged to become more ‘people-oriented’ and adopted its own Bill of Rights in 2012. However, rights regarding sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression (SOGIE) were controversially excluded from this (Langlois 2018). Legislation in some South-East Asian nations prevents LGBTIQ+ people from openly expressing their identity. For example, homosexual acts are punishable by the death penalty in Brunei and can incur a prison sentence in Malaysia and Myanmar. Conversion practices still occur in countries including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines (Root 2022). Homosexual conduct is criminalised in Singapore, although this law is rarely upheld and the country celebrates the Pink Dot Festival annually in support of the LGBTIQ+ community, demonstrating inconsistency between legal frameworks and practices (Wilkinson et al. 2017).

Even in countries where legislation is changing to decriminalise homosexual acts and ban conversion therapy, as in Singapore and Vietnam, respectively, in 2022 (Root 2022), religious practices present another barrier for the LGBTIQ+ community. Langlois (2022) explores the juxtaposition between historical religious traditions that included transgender people and the influence of religion on modern society. Transgender ritual specialists held key symbolic roles in their communities in countries including Indonesia, Malaysia and the island of Borneo (which is now shared by both countries and Brunei). However, contemporary society is broadly traditional and conservative in these countries, and Indonesia has seen a regression in terms of tolerance of sexuality and gender diversity since 2016 (Langlois 2022). Similarly, Sanders (2020) examines the role of religion in state governance in countries such as Brunei and Malaysia, where Islam is the official state religion. Given that Islamic laws are highly conservative and do not support homosexuality (Wilkinson et al. 2017), there is little opportunity for political change in these countries at present and religion still presents a barrier to the recognition and political participation of LGBTIQ+ individuals.

Moreover, public attitudes towards the LGBTIQ+ community present a challenge to political participation. Even in countries where near-full legal equality has been achieved, LGBTIQ+ people remain significantly more likely than heterosexual or cisgender people to experience prejudice or discrimination (Manalastas et al. 2017). Manalastas et al. (2017) conducted a study of attitudes towards lesbians and gay men in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The research found that 66 per cent of respondents in Indonesia and 59 per cent in Malaysia reject lesbians or gay men as neighbours. The country with the greatest tolerance for same-sex neighbours was the Philippines, at 28 per cent. Homosexuality was found to be least acceptable among Indonesians, followed by Vietnamese and Malaysians (Manalastas et al. 2017). The ASEAN SOGIE Caucus (2021) also finds that social and cultural prejudices in the region uniquely disempower and oppress sexual and gender diversity. While LGBTIQ+ political candidates are beginning to appear in countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand (Langlois 2018), attitudes among civil society must shift before real change can occur in the political arena regarding the inclusion of LGBTIQ+ people in politics. Additionally, in Australia, where queer politicians exist, Stephenson et al. (forthcoming) find that LGBTIQ+ politicians face significant trolling and online abuse. Significant legal, religious and societal barriers in South-East Asia and Australia currently hinder progress towards recognition of LGBTIQ+ people in some countries, let alone the full political participation of this community.

Ethnic diversity and politics

Ethnic minorities in Australia and South-East Asian countries face significant barriers to political participation. The concept of ethnic minorities is not defined in international legal documents (Yen and Thang 2022), so definitions vary in academic literature. Yen and Thang (2022: 288) explore several definitions but concur with the statement that an ethnic minority ‘is any group of persons which constitutes less than half of the population in the entire territory of a State whose members share characteristics of culture, religion or language, or a combination of any of these’. This definition encompasses defining features of ethnic minorities highlighted by other scholars.

Pholsena (2016) identifies the divide between majority and minority groups as a dominant feature of society and a barrier to political participation, with ethnic minorities sometimes still perceived as backward or untrustworthy and therefore unfit to hold political office. Gaining recognition as citizens is still a prominent issue for ethnic minorities in mountainous communities in Thailand, with 40 per cent of the highland population lacking Thai citizenship in 2005 (Pholsena 2016). This prevents participation of any sort in society, including in politics. Rural-based ethnic communities in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam are found to generally underperform in economic and social development. Higher levels of poverty, lower access to education and health facilities and lower participation in state education are all identified as barriers to achieving equality in these countries, including in the political sphere (Pholsena 2016). Furthermore, ethnic minorities in South-East Asia often reside in mountainous areas. These communities are often underdeveloped, with children sometimes unable to access education or struggling to use official languages in school. This creates a barrier to political participation for ethnic minorities (Children of the Mekong n.d.).

Tan and Preece (2022) provide a more positive analysis of ethnic minorities in Singapore. Quotas require 18.3 per cent of national legislature members to be from ethnic minority groups, guaranteeing representation of minorities such as Malays and Indians. This quota has been surpassed, with 29 per cent of current legislators coming from minority ethnic groups (Tan and Preece 2022). However, their study also highlights that Malays have historically been disadvantaged in Singapore and trail behind in education, employment and income outcomes. Socioeconomic and structural inequalities persist between the dominant Chinese and minority Malay groups, making this a challenge to achieving substantive political representation (Tan and Preece 2022). Barriers to political participation among ethnic groups in South-East Asia therefore include socioeconomic inequalities, lower access to education, electoral vote-splitting and weak party institutionalisation.

Political representation of diverse young people in Australia and South-East Asia

Overall, there are several gaps in the academic literature on political pathways, participation and experiences among young people, women, LGBTIQ+ people and ethnic minorities in South-East Asia. Region-wide studies often fail to fully comprehend the impact of political regimes on political choices, while considerable variation within the region makes it difficult to draw generalisations. The intersectionality of identity remains understudied, with most research focused on a single axis of identity or inequality, lacking nuance and in-depth exploration. While this literature review has attempted to understand overlapping aspects of identity, it is noted that the paucity of research on people with disability and politics has constrained analysis. Overall, the political landscape in Australia and South-East Asia can be characterised as ethnically homogeneous, heterosexist and male. The overwhelming focus on politics as formal representation inhibits scholarly and practical conceptions of informal politics (or proxies—activism in non-profits, through social entrepreneurship or the creative industries, for instance) as politics. Except for scholarship on young people, which considers informal methods of participation such as protests and social media activity, literature on informal political participation remains missing. Given there are potentially fewer barriers for diverse groups to participate informally in politics, this remains an important area for study.

How do gender-diverse young people define politics and see their path to politics?

While much of the literature defines political participation as participation in formal politics, young people in this research held a much more expansive definition of politics and political participation. Their conceptualisations varied from seeing politics as a neutral ‘process of shaping social structures and power’ to one of ‘debate and negotiation’. In Cambodia, one participant, Chea, even described politics positively: ‘[W]e all subscribe to democracy, we adhere in our institutions, to our constitution around liberal democracy. Everyone has an opportunity to actively engage in politics and also be a political representative.’

Yet, the bulk of participant responses highlighted negative associations with politics, using words such as ‘violent’, ‘competition’, ‘paternalistic’, ‘corruption’, ‘nepotism’, ‘seniority’, ‘nonsense’ and ‘dirty’. It is seen as difficult, exclusionary and dangerous, with Linh noting that ‘to participate in politics is a risk of its own’. Abdul notes that in Indonesia, politics is seen as being close to crime: ‘Indonesia has done very good in eradicating corruption, but still it happens in many places, which makes many young people not interested in politics.’ For others, there was a perception that you would only go into politics for yourself (ego) or money, and the barriers were seen as myriad: lack of finance and resources; perceived lack of experience; lack of political ties or connections; royalty; nepotism; sexism; ageism; ableism; and societal and individualised homophobia, biphobia and transphobia.

Despite the largely negative connotations surrounding perceptions of politics and barriers to participation, young people were politically active and many identified that they were on the path to politics—seeking future election or representation in ‘traditional’ politics. Many viewed their own political engagement as responding to some of the negative aspects of traditional politics: they were trying to make it safer and less paternalistic, bring about good governance and be impactful in their communities. But being on the ‘path to politics’ was also an incomplete definition of how they saw what they did; although not elected officials, many felt they were already ‘in’ politics. The definition of their own political action was not viewed purely through a traditional lens of party membership and political elections.

In the Philippines, Pearl characterises young people’s engagement in politics as multidimensional:

Maybe you comment on the climate crisis, or maybe you create art that focuses on the lived experience of queer women. Maybe your activism is through art, maybe it’s through doing your own climate tech startup … [Y]ou’re not wrong for entering a particular space or doing a particular thing, build[ing] your own path.

While many of these actions could be seen as political engagement, infrequently have they been equated with direct and specific political representation or action. The political engagement spoken about was seen not merely as being part of their pathway to politics, but as already political. This was a clear and consistent message reinforced throughout this research. Politics is contextual and often rooted in intentions rather than methods.

This had clear benefits for participants, as well as constraints. Linh, who identifies as nonbinary and is from Vietnam, highlights the nuances:

[P]olitics, for someone with my profile right now, does not feel right … I would think of grassroots organisations, calling that a form of democracy, political actions, that would be something I’d be involved in. But if we talk about the usual politician’s career and election, that would not be the case.

While two participants in this study had run for election before, the types of political engagement usually engaged in included:

• starting an initiative or project
• founding a social enterprise, enterprise or non-profit
• artistic output: cartoons, comics, drawings, paintings, digital art
• protests (for example, Strike for Climate)
• petitions
• sharing information on social media
• fundraising
• content creation (blogs, vlogs, TikTok)
• voting
• joining a political party or student political party
• running for politics
• research
• developing resources for particular causes (for example, anti-racism kit)
• small-scale diffused, local volunteering
• overseas study or work
• being an influencer or celebrity.

Their experiences reinforced the idea that if more diverse actors are sought for traditional representation in politics, more diverse pathways to politics must also be recognised. It was clear that it is not only those who run for student politics, join a political party or study political science who are on the ‘path to politics’. While the barriers to political participation were significant—and warrant due exploration beyond the limitations of this chapter—the analysis of constructive gaps that follows highlights initial attempts to re-characterise pathways to politics.

Constructive gaps: Gendered authority from the margins

Entrepreneurship, creative industries, volunteering and other pursuits are not always viewed as part of a path to politics or as explicitly political representation or action. However, this research found that these same actions were seen as a legitimate political tool and, in some cases, a proxy for ‘traditional’, formal political participation. This section breaks down some of the core trends in mechanisms used by young people to be politically active across Australia and South-East Asia, including building credibility, reframing, leveraging regional and international partnerships, informal participation in politics, using the novel, embodying power and combining impact and income. This allowed young people to circumvent hierarchy, gain traction, model inclusion, maintain distance and boundaries and sustain action, as explored in Figure 4.1.

Figure 4.1: Constructive gaps used by gender and ethnically diverse young people to wield political power

Building credibility

As many of the challenges experienced by participants when engaging with politics are reinforced throughout the literature—ageism, sexism, homophobia—building credibility was a strong theme that emerged as a constructive gap used by young people to wield influence. Starting a social enterprise or initiative enabled participants to build credibility. Sal notes:

You’re able to show the numbers and the stories at the same time. By establishing yourself as a leading practitioner/thought leader, you’re able to have conversations with communities, help them in a certain way, and that gives us an added boost to slowly introduce or influence policies here in the country.

Founding an initiative or enterprise also gave participants an opening to talk with senior leaders. As Sal explains:

We’re not going to be able to come up with laws and legislation because we’re not lawyers, and we’re not actually a congressman or congresswoman, but you know, starting those discussions with [senior leaders] is already a step forward for us.

Tim notes that when you start a non-profit or social enterprise yourself, individuals are not ‘restricted by hierarchy’. He notes:

If I join a student political group or interned with an MP or something like that, you basically have a hierarchy in place, particularly for young people who are less experienced … I wanted to have a voice without being restricted by my position. If you start your own thing, you can be a leader at any age, and if your movement has support, you can get in front of very powerful people that you ordinarily couldn’t. That’s why [starting my own thing] was the best vehicle for me as a young person.

Using the establishment of their own projects or initiatives was therefore a critical link to not only building credibility, but also circumventing hierarchy. Social entrepreneurship in particular gives individuals an opportunity to influence policy plus make money, connect with audiences, consumers or clients in a different way, and so on, which could be enormously beneficial to young people from diverse backgrounds who may otherwise face extensive barriers.

Reframing

In the creative industries, many note that the open-ended nature of creative expression means that more controversial or progressive political stances can go unnoticed or be reframed to protect the artist/activist, while still having duplicative meanings used to spread information, garner support or influence policy and politics. The use of motifs such as rainbows was employed to signal LGBTIQ+ inclusion or a specific message. Additionally, reframing was used in some countries hostile to LGBTIQ+ people to specifically support LGBTIQ+ communities by reframing a focus on service delivery to mandate the ‘inclusion of all people’—setting the precedent for inclusion without needing to call out specific target audiences who might otherwise be at risk. Reframing was also applied at a national level. Where participants had a hard time engaging politically in their own country, they advocated for a more regional approach and getting involved in initiatives and campaigns that were regionally based, taking a multi-country approach to political influence. Often this was around a specific issue or cause, such as LGBTIQ+ rights or climate change, and many regional youth networks are backed by international donors and regional bodies (the United Nations or ASEAN) or governments (the United States, United Kingdom, Australia).

Leveraging regional and international partnerships

The use of partnerships to participate in politics was a strategy employed to undertake ‘politics at a distance’. In Cambodia and Laos, youth organisations are often unregistered (which comes with its own constraints) or, for local government–backed organisations, proximity to existing government institutions can result in a degree of organisational restraint and following the status quo. However, by partnering with international governments and donors, youth organisations (even government-backed ones) are sometimes able to take a more progressive and contentious position on topics than if no partnership options are available. In Cambodia, Chea noted that NGOs could get their message to a third party (international embassy or donor), which then reflected their desired policy ideas back to the Cambodian Government. In Laos, by partnering with the Australian Government under the Australia Now program, the Lao Youth Union ran events on progressive topics such as mental health and LGBTIQ+ and domestic violence, which otherwise might not have been possible.

Through using these approaches, young people were able to get around some of the barriers instituted by governments, with Chea noting that otherwise ‘the government would not give us credit to talk with them because we’re young, we don’t have a proper [legal] organisational structure’. Similar methodologies were employed in linking young people with international journalists who could write about their causes in international forums, influencing foreign governments and donors, who could then apply pressure to internal political systems.

Informal participation in politics

Some young people used informal participation in politics to engage in contentious ideas in a safe and exploratory space. In Cambodia, Chea engaged with other young people over football, coffee and chess to learn the ‘culture of debate and negotiation’ and engage a wider group of young people who could become informed about politics. It was seen as a more effective approach than having a teacher talk for a whole day and lecturing or dictating what young people should do. It was also a pragmatic choice: many non-profit or activist organisations in Cambodia operate under intense police and political scrutiny.

Using the novel

For Zara, a nonbinary comic artist from Malaysia, their art was not always political, but it became political because Zara would try to use their voice to

make light of sexual harassment issues and, at that point, there was no-one else that did … comics like I did, which got a lot of attention from people, and I got women personally messaging me saying her experience and saying thank you for making light of this issue.

Initiatives as diverse as the Teach Us Consent movement in Australia, Strike for Climate Action, the youth resistance in Myanmar, the boycott over Brunei’s repressive stance on LGBTIQ+ rights and more garnered additional strength by drawing on novel approaches—the use of social media, art, poses and hand signs—that were helpful for both media attention and gaining financial and other support for their political influence.

Embodying power

One of the defining features of young diverse people’s engagement in politics across Australia and South-East Asia was the concept of power. The constraining factors of gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality and disability all impacted on participants’ feelings of power and powerlessness. However, many participants spoke of knowing their own power, confronting it and redefining it. Arif noted that some of his work caught the attention of the president’s office and he was offered an internship in government. He asked what the program would entail and was told administration and logistics for events and programs. Arif said it would involve

helping out with the drinks, helping out with the food, carrying tables, and I was very upset. I said, ‘No, there is no way that my organisation will engage in this sort of way that disrespects the participation of youth.’ … [Then] she genuinely did ask how would young people like to engage, and I said, if you want to bring us into your work, let us have a substantial role in communications, shaping public policy.

His example demonstrates the benefits of pushing back against what is offered and shaping a more collaborative, equal engagement style.

Combining impact and income

Social entrepreneurship in particular gives individuals an opportunity to influence policy plus make money and connect with audiences, consumers or clients in a different way that could be enormously beneficial to young people from diverse backgrounds who may otherwise face extensive barriers. Ahmad notes that being a founder of a social enterprise ‘really put me in a lot of different spaces, from Indonesian Parliament, or talking to young people’. He also notes how important it is to use social enterprises as a space to help marginalised people, influence policy and get by. He notes that many of those with whom he now works in government or leadership have ‘never been as poor as I am, or they haven’t been as poor as others whom [I help]’. Social enterprise was seen as an even more viable option to influence policy, given the prevalence of volunteering among young people and the recurrent complaint that only those privileged enough could participate in politics; financial resourcing and remuneration were critical, but frequently inaccessible.

Enabling factors

Young diverse people’s ability to participate in politics and use these constructive gaps to influence policy did share many common enabling factors. These included having: enough financial privilege to dedicate time and/or resources to volunteering or starting something; politically engaged parents or other community figures (education, religion); role models and mentors; educational experiences that enabled women and historically marginalised groups to step out and speak up; and experiences of marginalisation, conservativism, personal or social challenge that motivated or inspired individuals to act. Ahmad additionally notes that education is critical—both achieving a high enough level and the ‘right kind’. He notes that where you go to university (and whether you go to university or finish education at all) acts as a filter that screens many out of the pipeline to politics. Reinforced by the nature of this study, which was undertaken in English, English-language skills were seen to give individuals more prestige and more useable capital to aid their political participation.

Additionally, political participation by young diverse and historically marginalised groups is evidently a privilege. It means individuals have enough time and resources to step out of their day-to-day professional and personal lives. Non-profits, creative industries and social enterprises are historically notoriously devalued, which has implications for the degree to which these avenues are viable constructive gaps to pursue in the first place.

Implications

As Baker and Barbara (2020: 135) note: ‘Understanding how citizens participate in politics is important because it shapes political culture and the tenor of democracy.’ Indeed, they note in their research on the Pacific that the standard research framing of politics ‘is looking increasingly tired and is poorly serving the Pacific region by framing core research questions too narrowly’ (Baker and Barbara 2020: 136). The narrowness of our studies and understandings of politics is reinforced in this study, which highlights three critical learnings. First, young people are not (just) disengaged, passive victims of a hierarchical political structure, but are political actors in their own right. Second, to support more diverse voices in politics, those recruited for politics and supported into the political pipeline could and should come through much more diverse means. Seeking out or supporting those already active in political ‘proxies’ may be one such avenue of recruitment. Third, traditional politics still matters, but it is not all that matters. Studies of gender and politics must do better to incorporate alternative paths to and practices of politics.

While proxies have been a powerful lens through which to view youth political action in this study, proxies do have limits, and warrant further investigation. Restricting historically marginalised groups ‘only’ to these spheres risks replicating existing power structures that exclude them from traditionally defined formal politics. This research therefore sits in an uncomfortable space: highlighting the strength of young people’s alternatives to traditional political participation risks pigeon-holing their political activism to just these spheres, rather than fundamentally encouraging the transformation of politics. This highlights the need to continue to be critical of representative political ideals: the process of representing the people is incomplete without actual representation, which cannot be replaced or substituted purely with alternative forms of participation. It remains to be seen whether current ‘politics as usual’ can allow young people to ultimately exist, let alone thrive, and it is therefore questionable whether reform is truly possible. This is reinforced by Lee and Craney (2019: 19), who note that in the Pacific:

Youth are often not taken seriously as political subjects within their own societies; their activism is not viewed as a right and it is sometimes dismissed, sidelined or, even worse, assumed to be anarchic or even criminal behaviour that needs to be controlled.

In this context, to what degree is political institutional change possible?

Relatedly, participants still raised considerable challenges to using their political power: trolling and threats, balancing mental health concerns with staying well, navigating financial barriers and overcoming ageism, sexism and homophobia, to name a few. These barriers will be further explored in additional publications, yet highlight the narrow (traditionally recognised) pathway to politics and the deeply ageist, ableist, gendered, heteronormative and ethnically homogeneous political context in which they operate.

Reflections on disability and queering the gender and politics literature

The participants living with disability or who identified as queer in this study were tired of not being seen, even in forums and literature aligned to their empowerment—such as feminist spaces. The Australian Feminist Foreign Policy Coalition’s issue paper on Furthering LGBTIQ+ Inclusion and Rights through Feminist Foreign Policy argues this in the case of human rights defenders: ‘[S]ome human rights defenders are sexist, some feminists are transphobic and homophobic, and some LGBTIQ+ advocates [are] racist’ (Stephenson et al. 2022: 1). The intersectional nature of both privilege and oppression reinforces the importance of ‘building’ attention to queerness and disability into gender and politics research. The work of gender and politics researchers is incomplete without queer and disability perspectives, with Henrickson et al. (2020: 9) noting that centring ‘the knowledges of racialized and otherwise minoritized and marginalized gender and sexually diverse people can affirm their lives, histories, and subjugated standpoints’. Further, the credentials of critical feminist research (which seeks to be empowering) are ultimately severely impacted by the continued marginalisation of queer and disabled people and perspectives in politics.

To be queer is to question existing power structures, subvert norms, make the invisible visible and critique heteronormative, hegemonic masculinised and normative spaces and institutions (see Butler et al. 1994; McCann and Monaghan 2019). Queer theory traces its academic roots to gay and lesbian studies, however, it now makes key theoretical contributions across related interdisciplinary fields, from politics to entrepreneurship, focusing on relational power, identity, subversion and disruption (Jagose 1996). While there is a growing field of research of queering politics, much of the research on gender and politics focuses on women and is ‘binary’ in approach. The prevalence of research on ‘both’ men and women (as if there were only two genders) or only ciswomen (to the exclusion of trans and nonbinary genders) works to continue to silence and render invisible gender diversity in politics. It also presents an incomplete analysis of the gendered dynamics of politics. This is further problematised by the rise of ‘gender-critical feminist’ perspectives in politics, which exacerbate an already embedded exclusion faced by many queer people. Simply put, what was once conceptualised as trans-exclusionary radical feminism/feminist (TERF) is now more often referred to as ‘gender-critical feminism/feminist’ to represent a ‘linguistic pivot from “anti-trans” to “pro-woman”’ (Thurlow 2022: 962). Agendas such as these that are ultimately reliant on ‘transphobic tropes, moral panics and essentialist understandings of men and women’ further distance queer people from political spaces that could be integral to their empowerment (Thurlow 2022: 1).

Queer politicians, and those on the ‘path’, are already more likely to attract high levels of public scrutiny due to there being ‘something sufficiently novel, interesting, [and] important’ about them to ‘attract close attention and interference from observers and exchange partners’ (Sutton and Galunic 1996: 205). The consequence of this ‘risky visibility’ in public spheres is the exacerbation of the ‘moral regulation of non-traditional lifestyles and identities’ already imposed on gender and sexual minorities in a heterosexist society (Stephenson et al. forthcoming; Wagner 2021: 502). Queer activism and political movements can be viewed as ‘threats’ to political hegemony, whether overtly or subconsciously, by the media, politicians, community and constituents alike (Taylor and Pye 2019). This drives an environment that is increasingly hostile to any attempts to subvert traditional gender and social roles and identities in political paths, too. For many queer individuals, therefore, the hostility and harassment perceived as part of entering public office are often considered not worth the stress (Wagner 2021).

This is reinforced and complicated by disability. Politics is a game of endurance and resilience that some in the system have additional privilege and support to be able to navigate. The impact of living with disability had a dual impact on my research participants, affecting their experiences and participation and impacting on their choice to opt out of the system that so constrained them. If our studies on gender and politics remain focused only on those who ‘made it’, there are critical implications for all those who did not, could not or opted not to ‘make it’ due to the systemic pressures (and individual circumstances) stacked against them. This reinforces my own research’s focus on not only a much broader definition of politics (including the ‘path’), but also depth: going beyond what we ‘know’ of challenges to those seldom discussed. As Thomas (2013: 58) notes, twentieth-century ‘feminism singularly failed to address the question of disability, and can actually be accused of contributing to disablist discourses and practices either by omitting to consider disability at all, or through its practice of uncritically reproducing disablist ideas’.

Ultimately, my own reflections on incorporating queer and disability perspectives within gender and politics research reinforce the importance of critiquing work that merely seeks to add women to existing political systems—without reflecting on the system itself. Queering understandings of politics and ‘seeing’ those who have been minoritised and marginalised even within gender studies are important. Disability studies further aligns the emancipatory promise of feminist research on gender and politics to see and understand those most minoritised and be reflective of biases we build in when studying only those who have ‘made it’ to politics.

Conclusion

This chapter has sought to situate young people—particularly of diverse genders, sexualities, ethnicities and abilities—as experts and change agents. Queering politics through this research has sought to disrupt narratives about whose voice is credible and heard on political knowledge and expertise, as well as explore ethical forms of social action and political inclusion from those creating it. Ultimately, diverse young people need not be engaged in traditional politics to be deeply political. Proxies for traditional political participation exist—through non-profits, creative arts and entrepreneurship, at a minimum. This allows young people to wield substantial individual and communal levels of power and, at times, also impact broader traditional and structural politics and society. Arif notes:

For me, entrepreneurship is always a fantastic and important pursuit that every young person should foster … Why don’t we view entrepreneurship in the same lens of the civil society space? What does entrepreneurship represent? It represents disruption, it represents innovation, it represents change, it represents a drive to shift the momentum for the better, and I think that’s really what’s missing in the civil society space.

Yet, proxies have limits. Restricting historically marginalised groups ‘only’ to these spheres replicates existing power structures that exclude them from traditional politics. Further, a devaluation of these institutions is evident, resulting in further inequalities in social and economic capital. Ultimately, the ability to be engaged in any political action—traditional or through novel or informal means—remains a privilege. Incorporating the perspectives and paths of young people of diverse genders, sexualities, cultures and experiences of disability not only helps rectify silences in feminist political research but also contributes critical insights to a body of work that may otherwise fall short of its true emancipatory potential.

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