Spatial mobility as lived citizenship: agency and transitions among Italian youth

This article explores how intra-European youth spatial mobility intersects with the lived experience of citizenship among young Italians in a context characterised by precarity, neoliberal restructuring, and uneven access to opportunities. Drawing on two qualitative studies conducted between 2019 and 2021, it analyses the mobility trajectories of Italians aged 24–30 who engaged in mobility both within institutional frameworks, such as the European Solidarity Corps, and through informal, self-organised pathways. Based on narrative interviews and visual elicitation methods, the article investigates how young people interpret, enact, and negotiate European citizenship through their everyday mobile experiences. By bringing youth mobility studies into dialogue with citizenship studies, and particularly the concept of lived citizenship, the article conceptualises mobility as a processual and temporally extended space in which citizenship is made, deferred, and contested. The findings highlight the ambivalent nature of European mobility. While mobility enables forms of agency, belonging, and future-oriented imaginaries, it simultaneously exposes young people to structural constraints related to labour markets, housing, language, and recognition. These tensions reveal a gap between celebratory EU discourses on youth mobility and young people’s lifeworlds.