Political Engagement Among Young Adults with Minority Backgrounds: Between Identity and Interest

This chapter offers a discussion of the complex patterns of political engagement among young adults of ethnic and/or religious minority background. Concerns about racism, multiculture and religion propel engagement that operate on different scales, have different audiences and mean different things for different participants. The ideal-typical distinction between identity-based and interest-based engagement guides the discussion. The article draws on and develops arguments on identity-related engagement in transnational migration studies and in social movement studies. Engagement dilemmas are illustrated through three examples of different combinations of interest- and identity-based political engagement among young adults of minority background in Norway.