Youth Filmmaking and ‘Justice-Oriented Citizenship’

Based on the ethnographic example of the Reelhood project, this article explores the different discourses of 'citizenship' that emerged within a youth filmmaking project for young British Muslims. Using Westheimer and Kahne's distinction between the competing understandings of 'citizenship' that often inform educational interventions, I demonstrate how project funders and organizers proposed a different version of citizenship to that privileged by the young participants. Considering the particular technical, creative and social affordances of filmmaking, I examine whether these different visions were able to be reconciled.