Navigating youth, generating adulthood : social becoming in an African context

Abstract

This book focuses on the lives and experiences of young people in Africa. On agents who, willingly or unwillingly, see themselves as belonging to the socio-generational category of youth and the ways in which they seek to shape and unfold their lives in a positive manner. Rather than seeing youth as either a social or cultural entity in itself, or as a predefined life-stage, the book argues for an exploration of how youth position themselves and are positioned within generational categories. In studying young people, social scientists must conceptualise youth as both social being and social becoming; a position in movement. It is from the duality of being positioned and seeking one's own socio-generational position that this book engages in the debate on contemporary African youth.

CONTENTS -- YOUTH(E)SCAPES -- Introduction/Cathrine Christiansen, Mats Utas and Henrik E. Vigh -- NAVIGATING YOUTH -- Social Death and Violent Life Chances/Henrik E. Vigh -- Coping with Unpredictability: "Preparing for life" in Ngaoundéré, Cameroon/Trond Waage -- Child Migrants in Transit: Strategies to assert new identities in Rural Burkina Faso/Dorte Thorsen -- GEN(D)ERATING ADULTHOOD -- Popular Music and Luo Youth in Western Kenya: Ambiguities of modernity, morality and gender relations in the era of AIDS/Ruth Prince -- Industrial Labour, Marital Strategy and Changing Livelihood Trajectories among Young Women in Lesotho/Christian Boehm -- Relocation of Children: Fosterage and child death in Biombo, Guinea-Bissau/Jónína Einarsdottir -- INCLUSION/EXCLUSION -- Meaningful Rebels? Young adult perceptions of the Lord's Resistance Movement /Army in Uganda/Sverker Finnström -- The Serendipity of Rebellious Politics: Inclusion and exclusion in a Togolese town/Nadia Lovell -- AFTERWORD/Michael A. Whyte