Social Science Research Council

The Africa Program selected 13 fellows for the 2001-02 program Understanding Exclusion, Creating Value: African Youth in a Global Age. The program received over 70 applications for the competition from twenty-four disciplines across the social sciences and humanities on the theme of "Youth Violence, Activism, and Citizenship." The program was an initiative of the SSRC/ACLS Africa Regional Advisory Panel (RAP), in partnership with the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and South Africa's National Research Foundation (NRF). Funding has been generously provided by the Education for Democracy and Development Initiative (EDDI), with additional support from the NRF.

Background

Among scholars and policy-makers, an awareness is growing that young Africans hold the key to the continent's ability to realize the promises of an African renaissance. It is a truism that in all societies young people are "the future," but conditions in Africa make this truism especially relevant. Demographic trends reveal that African countries have extraordinarily high percentages of their populations between the ages of 15-25, many with little access to education or employment. Many are also vulnerable to reproductive health challenges (especially HIV/AIDS). As a result, many youth have to fend for themselves, their families, and communities. Fueled in part by these trends, African youth figure prominently in several of the major conflicts in the region, both as soldiers and as civilian targets. At the same time, students and the urban dispossessed have been at the forefront of democratization movements in many parts of the continent. Young people are actively participating in religious organizations and other components of civil society which aim to transform the public sphere. In some ways, the political and social mobilization of young people can be seen as claims to effective citizenship.

Thus, new and deeper knowledge of African youth's possibilities as citizens, and of the broad conditions that impinge upon these possibilities, is desperately needed. These conditions include global forces - a global economy that impinges on young people's life chances and provides a market for commodities that fuel war, flows of cultural goods and symbols that influence youth identities and relations with older generations, and universal discourses of democracy and human rights that emphasize certain definitions of citizenship (and not others). An examination of globalization and its impact upon African youth in local, social and historical contexts in particular, is needed since global forces both intensify the social exclusion of many youth and provide opportunities for transforming their situation.

The program did not seek to impose a rigid definition on youth, since demographic, legal and cultural definitions may differ. Proposals specified what definition they were using and justified why that was appropriate, given the purpose of their research. To the extent possible, proposals also addressed the theoretical and practical implications of the research.

Fellows attended a five-day orientation workshop prior to research in September 2001, received a research grant of up to $7500 USD for their field research, and attended a final workshop at the conclusion of their fieldwork.

African researchers based in the region who held at least a Masters degree and who were no more than five years beyond a Ph.D. were eligible for this program. Researchers based at universities, research institutes and practitioner organizations were all encouraged to apply.