Recycled youths, or, the reproduction of ecology of culture

The note is a case study of youth recruitment to cultural labour. The main protagonist is MJ, a young woman who has been engaged in doing culture for more than 10 years. The note traces her path from early participation in a local writer’s school for young people to serving as senior editor of a national major cultural magazine. MJ’s path is entangled in numerous ways with cultural institutions, festivals, temporary projects, local cultural leaders, and she thinks of herself as a youth ‘recycled’ by local cultural institutions. The note applies ecology of culture as a conceptual framework to explore and describe a mechanism of cultural reproduction. The note contributes to the study of ecology of culture by describing in detail how youths are groomed for entrepreneurial, cultural labour, and by conceptualising how the work of cultural reproduction effectively transcends singular cultural organisations as youths move between organisations.