Name and Surname
Ajda Hedžet
Affiliation
University of Ljubljana
Contact email
ajda.hedzet@fdv.uni-lj.si
Short Biography
Ajda Hedžet is a researcher, teacher, and editor working at the intersections of human rights, youth politics, and international relations. She conducts research at the Centre of International Relations, University of Ljubljana, and teaches courses on international human rights, global politics, and international institutions at the Chair of International Relations, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana.
Her research explores how youth and other marginalized or affected groups become recognized as political subjects and how they exercise agency in spaces of governance, activism, and digital resistance. Ajda combines discourse analysis and participatory methods to study the evolving boundaries of human rights and democratic practices. She serves as Editor of the Journal of International Relations and Development, is a member of the European Democracy Hub’s Young Researchers’ Network, and co-coordinates the CEEISA Doctoral Network.
Research abstract
From Margins to Makers: Youth, Constructive Resistance, and Democratic Futures in Southeast Europe
This project aims to investigate how youth in Southeast Europe navigate the contradictions of being simultaneously marginalized and idealized as agents of democratic renewal. While governments, donors, and the EU often frame young people as “future-makers,” or “agents of change” they remain excluded from meaningful participation in political life. The research explores how youth in Southeast Europe engage in constructive resistance, practices that not only challenge dominant forms of governance but also create alternative visions of democracy, solidarity, and belonging. Drawing on multi-sited qualitative research, combining system mapping, collective interviews, and netnography of youth-led organizations and digital practices, the project examines how young activists mobilize in online and transnational spaces to articulate new democratic imaginaries and reclaim agency under conditions of precarity and constrained civic space. By theorizing youth politics through the lens of constructive resistance, the project engages with interdisciplinary debates in political sociology, anthropology, and international relations. It seeks to illuminate how democratic futures may emerge from below in contexts marked by fragile institutions, donor dependency, and political capture.