Conclusion: rhetorics and realities of active young citizens across the European union

This concluding chapter does four things: First, it draws out the connections and tensions between the arguments in preceding chapters. Second, it examines the findings and positions taken with regard to particular issues (e.g. diversity and burnout), highlighting which are generalisable and cut across national/regional boundaries and which are specific to national contexts, times and places. Third, it reflects on strengths and weaknesses of the ethnographic method as used by our project, discussing the wider findings of the ethnographic approaches used by the researchers across the chapters in regard to typologies and definitions of active citizenship, power in youth civic organisations and the pragmatics of running such organisations. Finally, the conclusion explores gaps and absences in the current volume and the wider field.