| At the
start of the new millennium Africa is the most ‘youthful’ continent in
the world, with approximately 50 percent of its human population below
the age of 18 years and a large proportion between the ages of 18 to 25
years. At a time when northern European countries, Japan and other
industrialized states are projected to lose population over the next decade,
Africa confronts a very different scenario. Despite devastating public
health constraints, its population, especially its youth, is projected
to grow. While Africa’s youth often is portrayed in negative terms--violent,
rebellious, and disrespectful of custom—they also represent the future
of the continent. The AIDS pandemic, wars, and poverty have left large
segments of the continent’s youth to fend for themselves, and with increasingly
important but understated roles in many spheres of life. The
time is especially opportune for Africanists to reflect on the implications
of this youthfulness from a range of disciplinary lenses, from art and
music to sociology and anthropology to political science and economics.
By focusing on the implications of Africa’s youth for scholarship and practice,
one can ask new questions of current paradigms and studies, as well as
explore fresh ideas with promising intellectual and policy dividends.
Several traditional areas of research in African studies have strong legacies in the study of youth. Geography and sociology, for example, have been concerned with the role of youth in African cities, particularly as it relates to violence and crime, migration, and economic adaptations. The multifaceted process of urbanization suggests a range of important questions about youth and age generally. The experiences of Africa’s urban growth, which now has the highest rates in the world, has taken a fundamentally different path than on other continents where urbanization has traditionally been associated with rapid industrialization. African cities, instead have taken a different route, one dominated by the informal or ‘shadow’ economy that often accounts for more than 50 percent of urban employment with high levels of youth participation. Urban residents are involved with petty trade, urban and peri-urban farming, and a range of small-scale enterprises and service-based activities. Young migrants and refugees play increasingly important roles in Africa’s thriving urban informal sector. How have youth responded to Africa’s unprecedented recent rates of urbanization; have the new metropolitan areas of Africa afforded new social and economic opportunities or aggravated existing problems for the young? African politics is another area where the theme of youth is especially relevant, particularly in some of the continent’s weak states (Sierra Leone and Angola) and in places where democratic experiments recently have occurred. The role of youth in political rebellion and resistance movements, as well as democratic elections is receiving increased attention but could benefit from additional focus. Popular media often has concentrated on the political ‘negatives’--the gun-touting, youth militia (‘child soldiers’)--but the young play other, more constructive roles in political life. Democratization movements that have affected political regimes from Mali in the west, to Tanzania in the east demonstrate the power of youth in political transitions and elections. Even among the continent’s longest standing political regimes, such as in Kenya, the role of the next generation of leaders in politics (the so called ‘young Turks’ in Kenya’s case) is receiving considerable attention and confirms the political importance of age. What are the implications of the continent’s youthful demographic patterns for Africa’s new democracies and political challenges? Music and the arts in general
are other areas where the theme of youth is especially relevant.
With increased globalization and technological advances, African music,
film and dance are taking on new hybrid forms that blend past and present
in particularly creative ways. Global influences are reflected in
new expressions of
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African youth also represent significant challenges as well as opportunities for social and economic development on the continent. Development scholars and practitioners are forced to consider the social and economic implications of Africa’s youthfulness. In terms of the HIV/AIDS crisis alone, youth are especially vulnerable not only because they are increasingly orphaned and left to fend for themselves, but they also are highly susceptible to the disease itself. Recent evidence tragically points to alarmingly high rates of HIV infection among females ages 15-18 years, as well as heightened levels of vulnerability among upwardly mobile and educated males between ages 20 to 35 years. These categories represent some of the potentially most important groups for the continent’s future welfare. Economists already are beginning to explore the development implications of the HIV/AIDS crisis for labor markets and human capital formation, which paradoxically project skilled labor shortages in some regions but chronic levels of unemployment in other areas. Social workers, public health experts, and activists also are engaged in innovative ways in skills training, employment, and social programs for youth that have been so devastatingly affected by HIV/AIDS, war, and general impoverishment. In areas of chronic conflict and insecurity, a generation(s) of youth have been left with few skills and education but significant psychological and social problems. The development challenges of the continent increasingly must engage youth in meaningful programs and policies. These are just a few of the
many topics and disciplines that are concerned with and could benefit from
an increased attention to the position of youth in Africa’s past, present,
and future. Other subjects and disciplines are equally relevant.
A historian’s concern with youth-based independence struggles and resistance
movements, a writer’s focus on the ‘young’ in African stories, a gender
specialist interested in the intersection of age and gender, the environmentalist’s
interest with ecology and population growth, and the diaspora scholar who
wishes to understand youth in the new African diasporas all could contribute
to panels that highlight Africa’s youthfulness.
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| Whether they partake of the pleasures of urban hip-hop, form part of a vast diasporic trading network, or confront the dangers of drugs and unprotected sex, an increasing number of Africa’s youth are choosing the city over the countryside or deliberately straddling the rural-urban divide as they make their way into adulthood. From Kampala to Johannesburg, young people are navigating the opportunities and difficulties of urban life in economically creative as well as socially destructive ways. This section explores the symbols, strategies, and tools that youth employ to seek shelter, build self-esteem, make a living, and protect themselves physically and emotionally within and across diverse urban settings. It asks: To what extent does the built environment of the urban landscape frame the choices that particular young people make? How are the different options that urban youth exercise influenced by gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and class? What will be the likely impact on urban social services and living spaces of the increasing number of youth who have joined gangs or contracted HIV/AIDS? Alternatively, what mechanisms and modes have young people themselves adopted and adapted to confront the challenges of 21st century urbanism? Have conflict mediation groups, training schemes, and the shadow economy mitigated some of the hardships that urban youth face? We contend that the rising number of young people with a largely urban experience in their country of origin and beyond represents a significant cultural and political shift in Africa that merits considerable attention from scholars. The organizers welcome papers and panels that explore urban-based topics from both disciplinary and inter-disciplinary perspectives and/or that address urban opportunities and challenges posed by African youth. |
B: B. Political Transitions, Democracy, and Youth in Africa (Cyril Daddieh, Providence College)
| Recent political transitions
from authoritarian one-party and military rule to liberal democracies in
Africa owed much of their impetus to the sustained challenges posed by
Africa's youth. Students organized and kept up protest demonstrations against
attacks on their academic freedoms, inadequate financial support for education,
and against increased financial burdens on them and their families as a
result of cost-recovery measures. They also focused public attention on
corruption in government and the overall incompetence of office holders.
Urban unemployed school leavers and dropouts were also easily mobilized
to protest against their chronic unemployment and the high cost of living.
In attempting to survive at the margins by joining armed gangs and engaging
in banditry and other forms of anti-social behavior, they created insecurity
for everybody. In a few celebrated cases, such as in Sierra Leone and Liberia,
they joined rebel armies to fight incumbent regimes.
These myriad challenges posed
by the youth were enough to discredit corrupt, authoritarian governments
and to expose them as "lame leviathans" indeed. In short, Africa's youth
provided much needed impetus for civilian political organizations and democratization
movements. They contributed their organizational skills to new political
parties, organized campaigns, mobilized potential voters, provided enthusiastic
support to new leaders, and monitored elections to ensure that they were
"free and fair". A number
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| Most African nations have been
independent from colonialism for just about forty years now, but African
intellectuals, especially in the fields of religion and philosophy, have
been writing for a decade longer. The general historical condition of their
writing largely shaped the themes and style of their scholarship and writing.
It was a period full of innovative thinking, one that significantly contributed
to the emergence and growth of the twin disciplines of religion and philosophy
as we know it in the context of African Studies today. Most visible in
this quest at the time were the young African men entering training institutions
for ecclesiastical service in the various denominations represented by
the mission world of the day. They grew into men and scholars, and their
work and testimony broke new paths and became the foundation for the study
of African religions and philosophy.
As the youth of the 1940s and 1950s moved aside into retirement or passed on, their heirs took the disciplines of religion and philosophy in new directions. Philosophy in particular has undergone a solid and increasing secularization. It has embraced and joined other traditions in debating issues connecting philosophers across cultural and national boundaries because they aim at addressing broad and common issues emanating from similar experiences and aspirations in the political, social and moral domains, and from similar sentiments toward the impact of science and technology. At the 2001 ASA meetings in Houston, Texas, the Society for African Philosophy in North America (SAPINA) organized a session entitled “African philosophy and the reassessment of the postcolonial,” based on the widely held view that the postcolonial was a present that was fast vanishing. One reason for this disappearance is the fact that the demography of scholars of African philosophy and African religions was itself changing fast. The fields are transferring into the hands of a younger generation of scholars whose memory of the colonial discourse lacks the punch of direct experience that once informed the work of their predecessors. This generation of scholars are men and women, clerics and lay people, and largely young and liberal. It is important, in light of these changes and of the transformations in African societies generally, to gauge the intellectual directions of the current and still growing new generation of African scholars who embody a global approach to issues and to the practice of philosophy, and to research in religion. How can we make philosophy and
religion relevant and meaningful to 21st. Century African youth in the
face of apparently endless political instability and socio-economic decay?
What roles can Christianity, Islam, academic philosophy, and Indigenous
African religious systems and Modes of thought play in addressing some
of Africa's most vexing issues like AIDS and sexuality, poverty, social
justice, and civil society? The questions indicate that there are multiple
directions, especially but not solely in applied ethics, social and political
philosophy, epistemology, and metaphysics, in which scholars in philosophy
and religion can focus their attention to avert youth disillusionment in
the new millennium. This section aims at bringing together scholars
who will address the characteristic differences, if any, in the themes,
styles and theoretical content of current research in African philosophy
and African religions as spearheaded by the younger, post-postcolonial
generation.
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D: Environmental Change and Patterns in Africa (Roderick Neumann, Florida International University)
| What sort of environment will Africa’s youth inherit? While the answer to this question is fundamental to the continent’s future, it must be a multifaceted one. In cities, issues of sanitation, potable water, and pollution—and their health effects on youth—are key. In rural areas, issues of resource access (including inter-generational conflicts), exposure to natural hazards, and agricultural development predominate. In war-torn areas, sustainable systems of indigenous agriculture and resource management have been destroyed or displaced. Can Africa’s youth rebuild them? In areas of political stability, multinational corporations are investing in resource extraction activities at unprecedented rates. A new generation of environmental scientists will be critical to the evaluation and regulation of extractive industries. Will Africa’s youth receive the training needed for the task? How will demographic changes from AIDS and other factors affect environmental management, from small communities to the level of the nation-state? African youths are participants in new movements and organizations that link social justice and human rights to the environment. Can Africa’s youth lead the way to a more democratic, just, and ecologically sustainable future? National and individual debt is a key factor in environmental degradation. How will the inherited burden of debt constrain the future environmental management options of today’s youth? This section welcomes panels that address these and related issues and questions. Lessons from history, youth-focused ethnographies, and the sociology of youth in environmental movements are only a few of the many possibilities. |
| An important recent report,
entitled "Can Africa Claim The 21St Century," identifies four related strategies
for African development in the 21st Century: (1) Improving governance and
resolving conflicts, (2) Investing in people, (3) Increasing competitiveness
and diversifying economies, and (4) Reducing aid dependence and debt and
strengthening partnerships. Of the four strategies mentioned, investing
in people is the most important and challenging and entails development
programs for youth, particularly in the area of quality education, healthcare,
and population planning. Africa's human development problems that
directly affect youth include lagging primary school enrollments, high
child mortality, and endemic diseases- including HIV/AIDS and malaria-that
impose costs on Africa at the rate of two times that of any other developing
region. With a rapid rate of population growth, African economies need
to grow at an annual economic growth rate of 5 to 7 percent to simply keep
the level of poverty from rising.
Africa is also in the early stages of demographic transition. With a growing school-age population, Africa's school enrollment ratio has been falling. It is the only region in the developing world where primary enrollment rates were lower in 1995 than in 1980. Africa is also faced with problem of health where one in five children dies before the age of five. Almost 90 percent of deaths are caused by a handful of infectious diseases: acute respiratory infections, diarrheal diseases, malaria, measles, and tuberculosis that kill mostly children and young adults. In spite of the earlier gains, life expectancy since 1990 has stagnated, and it has sharply declined in African countries with high prevalence of HIV/AIDS. The purpose of this sub-theme
is to provide a forum for papers and panels that examine the effects of
economic development on African youth from various dimensions. Papers
are invited that analyze alternative development strategies and policy
options and their impact on youth in Africa. Papers that address issues
of human capital investment, such as improvements in education, health
care, nutrition, and population planning and their impact on African youth,
also are welcome. Papers that involve case studies of specific countries
and/or comparative studies, including comparison with other world regions,
also are encouraged.
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| Youth and the African Diaspora
is a theme that touches the core of the experience of peoples of the African
Diaspora. Beginning with the enslavement process in Africa, young
people made up the bulk of those who fought in the wars that provided millions
of captives to slave markets in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas.
Young people also disproportionately fell prey to kidnappers, or entered
the circuit of enslavement as a result of indebtedness of kin, and judicial
and religious processes and entered the slave markets that supplied enslaved
Africans to the Middle East, Europe and the Americas. In the Diaspora,
the actions of youth also stood out. Whether serving as boat hands
during the Middle Passage, as companions in the homes and harems of their
enslavers, sold in bundles along with adults to make up quotas, or forced
to work as child laborers in the plantations, mines, fisheries, and urban
centers in the Americas, the Middle East, and Europe, young people endured
the same horrors and exploitation as the adults. Those who survived
the several diseases that led to astounding infant and child mortality
rates joined the adults in their rebellions and uprisings, learnt the new
languages and culture that evolved in the Diaspora, and ensured the vitality
of the African Diaspora
communities. From the end of slavery to the present, the youth of the African Diaspora continue to represent the strength and survival of African peoples outside of Africa. This varied picture of youth in the African Diaspora opens up opportunities for papers on historical and well as contemporary issues. Proposals can range from a focus on youth and enslavement in the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas, youth and resistance to slavery, urban youth and the African Diaspora, youth and religion in the Diaspora, youth and cultural innovations in the Diaspora, and youth and the remaking of the Atlantic Diaspora. Proposals from all fields of study are welcome. |
G: Historical Narratives and Models for Africa (Dennis Cordell, Southern Methodist University)
| Youth are embedded in most
of the historical narratives and models, both emic and etic, regarding
how African societies have changed through time. However, attention
to the positions and roles of young men and young women in African societies
in the past has often been obscured by the authority accorded older members
of African societies and the high value assigned to children as symbols
of the endurance and continuity of the family. Young men and young women,
who are neither children nor have large numbers of children, are marginalized
in most of our conceptualizations of the history of Africa. Panels and
papers that explore the theme of youth in the thematic narratives common
to all eras of African history are encouraged. For example, founding narratives,
migration narratives, initiation narratives, narratives of war and conquest,
slave stories, resistance tales, marriage narratives, and accounts of the
founding of families almost all accord a prominent place to those men and
women we would characterize as youth. The roles of youth are, of course,
gendered in a variety of ways, and contributions that highlight these distinctions
are important. The European and Muslim travel literatures have also contributed
much to our “reconstructions” of African history before the colonial era,
but most readings of these sources have not focused on youth. Papers that
re-read these narratives with an eye to young women and men will undoubtedly
offer new insights. Panels and papers that look at youth in the narratives
of the colonial era—those recorded by Europeans which are now enshrined
in colonial and missionary archives, as well as others recorded and/or
published by African authors—will also have an impact on our conceptualization
of the rise of modernity in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
After all, it was young men and women who went to colonial schools and
churches, served in colonial armies, gave birth in colonial clinics and
hospitals, and worked in wage labor. The same may, of course, be said for
the place of youth in our narratives about, and models of, African societies
after independence.
Panels and papers in historical
population studies that privilege the evolution and the size and composition
of those cohorts of men and women that we call “youth” are welcome in this
section. In addition, contributions that consider the ways that African
societies in the past categorized youth and the evolution of these categorizations
are essential to understand how young women and young men were situated
in African societies before the contemporary period. Comparative
panels and papers are also encouraged, contributions that compare conceptualizations
of youth and historical sources about them between African societies, between
African societies and those of the Diaspora, and between African societies
and societies in other parts of the world. Finally, not all papers
dealing with historical narratives and models need to consider the sub-theme.
While contributions on youth are encouraged, others are, of course, welcome
as well.
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| This theme offers the opportunity to revisit old topics, as well as to address new ones. For example, what have been the roles of age-based organizations in African colonial history or what has been the role of youth culture in the post-colonial era? The idea of ‘youth’ in African history should be interpreted broadly: that is, back into the pre-colonial past and forward into the post-colonial era, examining both change and continuity. Half of Africa’s population is under fifteen. Its “small wars” are increasingly fought by children, who are also a visible component of the “new poor”. Yet Africa has never been an ageing continent. How have communities coped in the long term with the disparity between youthful muscle and elderly wealth and authority; and are child soldiers really a new phenomenon? The young become old, and that passage from youth to age reminds us that “youth” cannot stand alone, without reference to other states. Generational tension has always been one of the motors of African history. “Resistance”, then, covers more than the conventional “anti-colonial” forms, and it should be sensitive to the ways in which gender and class or wealth affect the construction of age and its passages. We know that such issues were embedded both in early conquest and “resistance” and in nationalist movements, from the city boys of the CPP to the socially-defined “young delinquents” of Mau Mau, and in struggles within church and mosque. Did colonialism and its contradictions act both as a catalyst and a site of youthful rebellion – for colonial rule began by backing the young against the old and ended in reverse? The theme might be further extended to cover colonial regimes and settler communities, for they too had young men and women to place and placate. This section welcomes contributions that address these and other historical issues and encompass both disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches. |
I: Agriculture, Food Security, and Rural Development (Christopher Barrett, Cornell University)
| Africa is the only major region of the world in which the number of hungry persons, including children and adolescents, is widely predicted to increase over the coming quarter century. Although rapid urbanization is fundamentally changing the face of Africa, African development continues to hinge on growth in opportunities and reduction in vulnerabilities in rural areas. Agriculture remains the lifeblood of Africa, not only as a source of income for farmers, but also as a source of inputs to processing, manufacturing and retail businesses that account for most employment in towns, and as the source of food for growing urban populations that haven’t dependable, low cost access to imported foods, necessitating rapid growth in output per farmer if the food security of both urban and rural populations is to be assured. The beginning of the 21st century has brought a resurgence of work on agricultural development strategies in Africa. Some of these depend on recent advances in genetics that open up new possibilities in crop and livestock breeding. Others emphasize continued liberalization of agricultural input and output markets or on innovations in smallholder organizations that might address real or perceived market failures. Agricultural research and extension systems are being recast in many countries on the continent, with heightened attention paid to the integration of indigenous and western knowledge about agroecologies. At the same time, many observers have emphasized the steady “deagrarianization” of rural Africa as nonfarm activities have become increasingly important to sustainable livelihood strategies. This sub-theme welcomes proposals that explore contemporary challenges of agriculture, food security and rural development in Africa—for example, increasing agricultural productivity, reconciling poverty reduction, food security, and environmental protection objectives, stimulating nonfarm investment and employment, infrastructure development and the delivery of public goods and services to remote areas, and effective humanitarian response to droughts and other natural disasters--and employ a range of analytical approaches from across the disciplines. |
| On a continent where the majority of the population lives in rural areas, rural livelihoods and the social groups that facilitate those livelihoods play key roles in understanding the African experience. With the vast diversity across the continent, social groups – whether small nuclear families, extended kin groups with ethnic affiliations, clusters of co-operative households, or ethnically hybrid communities in migrant frontiers (to identify only a few) – fundamentally shape rural peoples opportunities and choices for making a living. The ways people in rural Africa make a living also link to forces wielded by governments, global economic systems, and development groups. The role of youth in rural livelihood becomes especially critical in light of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and the increasing burden placed on survivors – very often orphaned children. Conversely, as the number of young infected with HIV/AIDS increases in rural areas, how do rural communities and economies cope? This section invites papers and panels which help to illuminate the wide range of linkages between livelihoods and social groupings on the African continent, as well as research that brings together meaningful comparisons of different livelihood systems. In particular, with attention to questions of a youthful Africa, we encourage presentations addressing the roles youth play in rural livelihoods – both through their domestic groupings, and outside of them. Topics considered within this section might include community and household adaptations to changing environments, local agrarian systems, gender and age dynamics (within and beyond the domestic group) in livelihoods, and migration and mobility as an increasingly pervasive rural phenomenon. All of the issues covered in this section benefit from examination through multidisciplinary lenses, and we welcome papers and panels that bring together a variety of disciplinary perspectives. |
| The section on New Patterns of International Relations welcomes proposals for papers and panels that address not only the influence of global political and economic processes on Africa but the significance and influence of African political, economic, and cultural processes and problems for the shape of international arenas. "Global" and "International" patterns include not only worldwide contours but those of particular non-African regions, the African continent as a whole, and subregions within the continent. Especially welcome will be proposals that test and explore the influence of African experience for contemporary theory, e.g. in the areas of international relations and international political economy. |
L: The Visual Culture of Youth in Africa and the Diaspora: Artists, Art Communities, and Changing Times (Karen E. Milbourne, University of Kentucky)
| The theme of youth in relation to the arts suggests topics that address art forms made by and for young people. “Youth” might also be seen as a metaphoric principle for what is young, “new” in our discipline. The field of African art is indeed a young one, and one filled with many young scholars, young artists, and young ideas. Ideas of youth span the spectrum from creative objects of young people, to youth movements, and to the creative ideas of the “next” generation. Panels in this section might address a wide range of issues and themes. Inquiries into the art forms made and performed by Africa’s youth, like toys and children’s masquerades, are encouraged. Participants might address the gender implications of such art forms. What is visually specific to the arts and education of girls, versus that of boys? In addition, scholars might consider the interplay between youth movements and visual culture, or the concerns and challenges that seem particular to young artists today. For instance, how has the AIDS epidemic affected the culture of art production today? Where and how are artists receiving their training in changing times? What does the visual culture of violence and the increasingly popular martial arts videos, in combination with the graphic media, and harsh realities of life in war-ravaged nations mean for young artists of today, and tomorrow? Along a similar vein, how have artists turned to their craft to effect change for future generations? How do the arts address such complex and challenging issues as child abuse, substance abuse and other crimes and crises of youth? Other panels might include topics that trace cross-cultural interaction. How has African art influenced contemporary youth in the Americas, India, or Europe? How have the Africanisms of non-African nations been received, re-invented, or translated, when they cross back to African communities? Panels that take a reflexive approach, such as pedagogical or historiographic analyses of the youthful discipline of African art studies, are also welcomed. |
| Young Africans have placed their bodies and minds at the service of ideals to liberate their nations, and they have contributed their labor (disproportionately for their age group) to advance the economies of their households and their communities. But at what cost to their physical and mental health? The health of adolescents is sorely neglected in developed countries; in Africa, the emphasis on health care for the next generation stops at the end of childhood, which can occur startlingly early in life. Young people are exposed to a host of problems, some of which are suggested below. They are in need of special attention, quite distinct from the health care given to children and adults, raising several questions. In an era of privatization of health services, how do young people on their own access health services, what kind of health care do they find, and how are they received by health professionals? Because the words “children” and “youth” are not gendered in English, there is a frequent failure to distinguish the experiences of girls and boys, young women and young men. Panelists are urged to disaggregate their data by sex and/or gender. Suggested problems to be explored in papers and panels might include the health care of street kids and the health hazards they confront; the psychological impact of youth caught up in civil wars—what rehabilitation do girl and boy soldiers need; access to contraception, especially for unmarried youth; occupational health hazards of young bodies hard at work too early; health care arrangements for child heads of household; children and youth orphaned by war or disease; youth caught up in drugs and drug trafficking and rehabilitation facilities for their problems; and youth caught up in sex rings, especially young girls in prostitution-- what health education and care do they have? This section invites papers and panels focusing on health issues in Africa, whether they are focused on the specific topic of youth or broadly conceived. Papers and panels that focus on local experiences are particularly welcome. |
N: Gender and African Youth: Contemporary and Historical Issues (M. Priscilla Stone, Washington University)
| While the activities of African girls and young women have not often been the primary focus of research within the lively field of gender in African studies, their roles are nonetheless revealed in many spheres of African life, both past and present. We know, for instance, that household economies are heavily dependent on the labor of African girls, but how this labor is understood, and its effect on other spheres of life -such as education of girls in the contemporary period and their economic and health prospects in the longer run -- is of considerable interest. Young women in developing countries are known to be especially vulnerable to health problems, such as sexually transmitted infections (including HIV) that are compounded by inadequate health care and education as well as poverty. While these development challenges may seem overwhelming, at the same time women are emerging as leaders in many very contemporary and youthful cultural fields, including art, literature and music. Young women are also actively engaged in the political lives of their societies and past and present resistance movements and emerging democracies have involved the leadership and courage of all youth, both female and male. Youthful women traders and entrepreneurs also are playing important roles in the development and reconstruction of African states that have been ravaged by warfare and instability. Hopefully, young African females, while historically understudied, are coming into their own not only in the pages of scholarship but in shaping the future of their nations and societies. We encourage papers and panels on a wide range of these and other topics having to do with gender and youth in Africa, including comparison with other regions and the diaspora. |
O:
Information Technologies, Youth, and Development (Marion Frank-Wilson,
Indiana University)
| In recent years, the development
of new information technologies (ITs), such as the computer, the world
wide web, electronic books - all available to various degrees through cyber
cafes around the world - have sparked discussions on whether these
new technologies are a way for Africa to bridge the information gap and
participate more fully in the global economy, or whether they accentuate
the already existing inequalities between Africa and the industrialized
nations. With half of the African population under the age of 18,
the new technologies have the potential of shaping Africa’s future in new
ways. This sub-theme invites proposals from a variety
of disciplinary approaches that deal with ITs and their use and impact
on youth and development in Africa. Papers may address the issues
of access to IT, e.g., is there equal access to the new technologies
in rural and urban areas? Are ITs used by both male and female youths?
Are they used by a literate elite, or are they a way for disadvantaged
youths, such as street children, to participate in information gathering?
Papers may also look at how and for what purpose ITs are used by youth—for example, are they used as tools for information, entertainment, private communication, or as a way to develop international networks with other youth? In this latter connection, recent information technologies create new ways of communication and potentially new networks and coalitions. Papers may look at the relationship between the use of ITs by youth and its relationship to democracy. They may also address what kinds of websites are accessed by African youth, and where these websites originate. Are the new information technologies a way to empower African youth to actively participate in shaping the international discourse, or is the flow of information from North to South, with the North as the creator of information, and Africa as the recipient? Papers may also consider broader areas, including ITs employed as tools for political and/or economic empowerment, for education, or for artistic productions. |
| In Africa today, performing arts and popular cultural expressions—from music videos to concert parties to “traditional” performance complexes like masquerades—serve as resources for young people to achieve numerous goals in relation to their increasingly pluralistic worlds. This panel invites papers and panels that explore the kinds of social work that African youth today accomplish through music, performance and other forms of popular cultural expression. Many possible issues could be addressed. Given the centrality of performing arts to notions of individual and community identity, what particular identities are African youth expressing and generating through performance? Identity is always expressed in relation to others, and performing arts thus can be central arenas for the negotiation of conflict. As such, in what ways are African youth today, through performance, engaging contentious issues such as interethnic conflict, interreligious conflict, intergenerational conflict, or inequitable access to resources? The arts--especially music--have played key roles in numerous grass-roots campaigns of political rebellion and/or resistance in Africa. In such popular uprisings, what roles are played by popular music and its typically youthful performers? How are African youth using the arts to deal with social problems of particular relevance to them, such as HIV/AIDS and poverty? In a time of increasing economic uncertainty on much of the continent, what opportunities do the arts provide youth in terms of economic empowerment, development, and tourism? Finally, like youth the world over, African youth today are participants in transglobal culture. In what ways, through the arts and popular culture, do African youth contribute to and incorporate transnational streams of communication, and what meanings are generated in the process? These are just some of the many issues that could be addressed; this section welcomes papers on any topic pertaining to the theme of youth in music, performance, and/or popular culture. |
Q: From Figures to Producers: Youth and African Literature (Eileen Julien, University of Maryland)
| In this era of globalization
with its apparent signs of promise--media and products from near and far
abound and are transforming each and every corner of the world, boundaries
seem less firm--many African youth have grown up under an oppressive international
economic order, under dictatorships, oligarchies, or in the midst of war.
Some carry burdens beyond their years–as breadwinners, parents, prostitutes,
or soldiers. Many are orphans or refugees, living far from their
homelands in camps and harsh conditions. But youth have also shown
remarkable resilience and ingenuity, as musicians, performers, creators,
and as powerful political actors, changing political dynamics and urban
life. To think about literature in relationship to African youth,
then, we may begin by examining images of youth: How are young people represented
in literary and cinematic narratives and to what ends? Who writes
these texts and for whom? Are “la petite vendeuse de Soleil,”
Azaro, Askar, and Tambu, like “women” of an earlier generation of
texts, written and read primarily as figures for Africa and an African
future?
But we must go beyond representation
to place youth at the very center of literary production: Are the pre-conditions
for the practice of literature--schooling, literacy, libraries and a degree
of wealth--being met? Only then may we ask more precisely: What stories
can an older generation tell to young people today? What stories
do youth tell for and about themselves? What stories do they need
and want? Can the canonical texts of African literature speak to
them? Or are those texts, tragically associated with the failed suns
of independence, simply irrelevant? How have NGOs, for example, used
literary forms in their work with youth? Have these processes reshaped
the concept of the literary and young peoples’ understanding of literature?
What creative experiments in writing are taking place among young people?
In which languages shall they write? In which media do educators
speak best to these new generations? And in what media do they and
will they speak to themselves? What might literature bring that forms
of popular culture–radio, video, television, rap music and other forms
of performance–may not? Will literature itself be transformed by
these forms? Will it in turn help shape these media and their message?
Proposals on African literature that address these and other issues are
welcome.
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| Youth figure prominently in
changes in Africa, for ill and for good. This role has grown in the
last decade as post 1960s social and political structures have undergone
violent change in certain regions. A common understanding of this
process focuses on resulting youth violence and the role it plays in current
and incipient internal conflicts. Thus we seek proposals that address
the interests, organization, and aims of youthful combatants in conflicts,
and strategies for mitigating or preventing violent conflicts. Proposals
need not be limited to those that focus on youth action as a cause of conflict.
Peacekeeping may include activities of youths who take it upon themselves
to challenge current social practices and relations that they regard as
oppressive, constraining, and destructive. In this regard, some engaged
in violent action may regard themselves as peacekeepers vis-à-vis
a fundamentally corrupt social order. More pacific youthful peacekeepers
organize conflict resolution groups—Christian and Islamic—in countries
plagued by violence.
We are soliciting paper and
panel proposals that are located in this expansive interpretation of youth
conflict and peacekeeping. Topics can include (but are not limited
to) matters such as:
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| Africa’s leaders promised their
people access to formal schooling in exchange for their participation in
the continent’s independence struggles. This uncertain promise has long
been counted on as the primary engine for both socio-economic development
and the construction of civil society. School has been a popular
setting in the African cultural imagination, vivid in novels and music,
an aspect of the promise that education may hold. From the late colonial
period to the present the crucial tension in Africa’s educational systems
has been between ‘relevance for now’ and ‘relevance for the future.’ The
articulation of African societies and education varies from ‘informal’
education with practical skills training, to the ‘formal’ education of
increasingly sophisticated school and university curricula that cannot
address all of Africa’s social and economic needs. Despite recent
advances Africa is still the most unschooled, illiterate and innumerate
of continents.
Education is ubiquitous among
African social institutions and scholarship is sought that situates education
historically. We would like to see papers that interrogate education’s
role at the intersection of African youth and the wider society.
The access of the girl child to educational resources and the role that
education plays in changing social behaviors in health, HIV/AIDS, gender
relations, rural-urban migration, and political/national identification,
also are germane topics for examination. We also seek papers that
address alternative agencies for delivery of educational services, such
as indigenous and international non-governmental organizations and the
role of religious groups in education. Other topics for papers and
panels might include the policy issues of government spending on education
and the provision of universal primary education, early childhood education,
structural adjustment and user fees, and the choice of language of instruction
and its role in the preservation of the less commonly spoken languages.
We look forward to participation from both practitioners and academics.
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| Social movements and grassroots
activism have reemerged strongly in African countries, especially within
the fluidity of institutional change over the last decade. These movements
have sought to challenge, alter, or reinvent social, cultural, economic,
and political spaces and institutions. The youth in particular have been
at the heart of these movements not simply as mass followers but also as
leaders. While popular perceptions have emphasized the youth in troubled
roles such as rebel soldiers, warlord muscle, or riotous mobs, young people’s
roles within social movements have varied. These roles range from articulation
of alternative ideas and practices in development and broader social relations
(e.g. through NGOs and global fora) to expressing new conservatisms (e.g.
through fundamentalists sects and revivalist movements). Thus, the youth
in Africa are re-defining social relations and institutions -- claiming
today the oft-repeated adage that they are the ‘leaders of tomorrow’.
In order to comprehensively
explore the role of social movements and grassroots activism (and especially
of the youth within them), we invite proposals for papers and panels that
report new findings, ponder new questions or old questions anew. We invite
presentations that will help scholars, policy makers, and the public at
large understand the dimensions and content of social movements, grassroots
activism and especially the role of the youth in them. Presentations that
seek to also promote a better theoretical understanding and that engage
the prevailing popular perceptions of the youth in social movements are
particularly welcomed. Moreover, papers and panels including younger scholars
and/or youth activists are particularly encouraged.
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| The African archaeological record is unique in many ways. Africa is the only place in the world where human societal change can be followed through the last several million years. Other African patterns include domestication of animals before plants, and the subsequent development of mobile, egalitarian food producing societies. Organization of urban societies is also diverse and distinctively African. This archaeological record offers long-term perspectives on many issues central to Africa today. Population growth and population movement, as well as changing patterns of exchange and trade, can be seen over millennia and vast geographical expanses. The development of African domesticates, adoption of Asian and American crops, and continued use of wild resources, contextualizes current debates over use of indigenous crops and breeds, and maintenance of biodiversity. Gender issues and the role of youth in past African societies can be seen through changing demographics, burial practices, ornaments, and images in rock art. This year’s theme of “Youthful Africa in the 21st Century” opens many avenues for archaeological consideration, though not all papers at the annual meeting need to be concerned directly with this theme. The organizers welcome a range of different subjects and topics in African Archaeology. We are particularly interested in papers and panels that highlight the distinctive character of the African archaeological record, and those that provide long term perspectives on current issues. |