Latino/a Youth Activism in Higher Education: A New Materialist Analysis of the Latino Graduation Ceremony

In this paper, we entangle Latino/a youth activism with ritual culture in U.S. higher education. Specifically, we analyze ethnographically-generated data from Gildersleeve's (2015; 2016) study of Latino graduation ceremonies, emplacing our analyses within new materialist philosophy. We theorize the Latino graduation ceremony as assemblage (DeLanda, 2006) and produce new sensibilities about the significance of Latino/a youth activism in contemporary U.S. higher education. The purposes of this paper are two-fold. First, we hope to contribute to the knowledge-base around how Latino/a youth use/claim space in their efforts for social change. Second, we hope to contribute to the growing literature in education that draws from new materialist philosophy and develops new methods/analyses to help reveal youth experiences.