In early 2019 I published a blog on The Australian Sociological Association (TASA) Youth Thematic Group blog that was titled On the Absurdity of…(Youth Studies)
The blog opened with an extract from John Sutherland’s (2014) A Little History of Literature, in which he observed:
‘…The human condition, for Kafka, is well beyond tragic or depressed. It is “absurd.” He believed that the whole human race was the product of one of “God’s bad days.” There is no “meaning” to make sense of our lives…
…Albert Camus’ essay…“The Myth of Sisyphus,” pictures the human condition in the mythical figure Sisyphus, doomed for eternity to roll a rock up a hill, only for it to fall down again. Pointless. Only two responses are feasible in the face of man’s Sisyphean fate: suicide or rebellion…
I opened with this extract to point to a significant philosophical and literary history that had raised some fundamental questions about the character and purpose and meaning of human existence. And in exploring some of the dimensions of these questions various writers had concluded that much of human existence was, indeed, ‘absurd’. Of course, there are a number of ways in which the ‘absurd’ can be understood. My intent was not to explore these various meanings but to open a space in which I could flag some ways in which the ‘governmentalised’ intellectual practice of Youth Studies in globalising, increasingly commodified, knowledges spaces anchored in the contemporary Neoliberal university was, indeed, ‘absurd’.
I returned to this blog, and the sentiments that shaped it, in a recent presentation as part of Deakin University, School of Education, Research Methodologies in Education: Conversations with Professors series, Tuesday, August 19, 2025.
My aim in the work I refer to is not to somehow banish or move beyond this absurdity. Rather, my interests lie in exploring ways in which it is possible to re-imagine, even re-enchant a sociological imagination for the Anthropocene within these labour process and work practices that continue to shape institutionalised, intellectual knowledge production.
The recording of that presentation is available here:
I have also attached a version of that presentation with links to projects and resources that I refer to.
2025 Research Methodologies Presentation
Please circulate in your networks.