%0 Journal Article
%T "Our pain makes us family": March For Our Lives and the constitutive role of gun violence trauma in youth publics
%J Communication and the public
%D 2023
%A Jensen, Kelly
%V ePub
%N ePub
%P ePub-ePub
%X This essay examines the dynamics of diverse youth public formation through analysis of the 20 student speeches delivered at the 2018 March For Our Lives rally. I argue that the collective identification as youth survivors of gun violence trauma functions to constitute this diverse youth public. I trace how the speakers' shared gun violence trauma enabled them to form a racially integrated coalition while not discrediting their differently positioned identities and disparate gun violence experiences. In doing so, I forward a conceptualization of how youth publics negotiate gun violence trauma, asserting that youth publics are characterized by both present constraints and a future-oriented agency, members of youth publics must account for tensions across racial differences in their gun violence prevention advocacy, and gun violence trauma functions as a shared basis for political participation. My analysis of the students' gun violence prevention discourse complicates this framework to reveal how gun violence trauma as a shared basis for youth public membership threatens their source of empowerment: ownership over their futures. Contributing to scholarship on the formation of publics, this essay demonstrates the significance of youth publics at the intersections of race, trauma, and gun violence.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>
%G en
%I SAGE Publications
%@ 2057-0473
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20570473231186839