Youth, Identity, and Political Participation: An Ethnographic Study of Student Activism in Public Universities of Bangladesh

Abstract

Historically, student activism in Bangladesh has played a vital role in the struggles for democracy, merit, representation and national identity, but the quotidian activities through which university students construct their political identity are not well understood. This study studies student activism at the public universities of Bangladesh as an environment for young political engagement, identity development and state-society conflict. It asks how students at public universities negotiate partisan affiliations, ethical claims, campus hierarchies, digital media, and institutional hazards in their political participation. The primary aim is to examine the relationship between student activity on public residential colleges and young identity, as it pertains to broader democratic goals, career apprehensions, ideological affiliations, and experiences of fear or solidarity. The research is grounded in a qualitative framework with ethnographic orientation. It utilises the analysis of documents, published accounts of movements, institutional records, constitutional principles, reports on repression and academic literature on youth politics, collective identity and social movements. The theoretical framework combines collective identity theory, political socialisation, resource and relational approaches to activism, and the everyday state perspective. These methods help to explain why the Bangladeshi student action cannot be construed only because of the influence of parties or a culture of spontaneous protest. The results reveal that public universities are significant political venues, as residential life, union practices, emblematic campus locations, and internet communication create fertile circumstances for mobilisation. Simultaneously, hall-based favouritism, factional violence, surveillance, administrative closure and repression regularly distort participation and constrain the parameters of citizenship available to students. The article argues that student activism in Bangladesh is to be seen both as a democratic resource and as a contested institutional activity through which students gain political knowledge, make moral claims on the state and imagine political futures beyond the college campus. More democratic engagement means safe campuses, reliable student union elections, protection of dissent, open hall governance, and more recognition of students as political agents, not security threats.