'Connections and transformations in Africa'
	A workshop at the African Studies Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands, Tuesday 21 November, 2006

return to: Index page 'Connections and transformations in Africa'

Mobile youth and children in Africa

Ria Reis, Mirjam de Bruijn, Rijk van Dijk

The generational division has become very important in Africa. Demographic realities show that young people, defined in terms of their age, their position in structures of authority and their place in society are the majority in most African societies. They have for long been neglected as a separate category, but increasingly form an economic, social and political power that needs to be studied in its own right. This is relevant for both the young being defined as 'youth' as well as the young being defined as children where these matters be different in degree but not in kind.

In this sub programme we investigate the meaning and significance of mobility of young people in Africa. In youth studies especially the theme of migration to urban environments, the movement to areas of economic growth is central, and mobility features as topic in the exploration of sub themes like youth and religion, youth in political movements etc. (verwijzing in noot: see papers of youth conference). Geographical movements of young people are primarily explained in the context of rapid changes of African economy and society. The young and their changing attitudes are being interpreted as being at the forefront of these changes. Mobility is thus interpreted as a new development in the life of youth in Africa.

In this research we would like to rephrase this with a question mark. What kind of mobility is developed by youth? Who are defining their movements, and for which reasons? To which extent are youth taking up and creating their own movement? To which extent should their mobility be understood as systemic feature, i.e. as a connecting force necessary for and intrinsic to present day African societies. How do they use new forms of connections (through the technologies like mobile phones, of in the past roads and cars?); which new social technologies are thus developed?

Children are a different category from youth in the sense that whereas youth have typically been associated with being-in-between, and thus with liminality and danger, children have dominantly been defined in terms of dependency, vulnerability and passive receivers of culture rather than active contributors to social processes. This model is nowadays increasingly contested, for children and child culture in general, but specifically for the situation of many African children. Also through research done in HIV-AIDS infected areas and on child soldiers the social, economic and in specific cases political role of children in African societies has gained a lot of attention and especially in these cases it has become clear that we cannot simply use classic models of childhood to understand the situation of children in Africa.

A childhood discourse in terms of vulnerability and victimhood has been very dominant in the interpretation of mobility of African children. Mobility is often interpreted as a displacement from the family (nuclear or extended) and therefore mainly seen in terms of an aberration of normalcy. Children safely cared for in families are projected as the norm and is often takern for granted, therefore not made the subject of study contrary to the situations in which children become slaves, child migrants who are exploited, orphans roaming the streets of African cities, or the subject of exploitation through child labour, etc. Although indeed it cannot be denied that these forms of exploitation and mobility do exist, they are not the only forms of mobility nor can all these ‘movements and migrations’ be explained in terms of anomalies.

In this programme we want to understand the mobility of children and youth in their social, political and cultural environment. Mobility of the young is an intrinsic feature of most modern African societies. Rare are those who have lived their whole life in one place. The entire family may move in the lifetime of the young, or the young is moved from one place to the other, i.e. ‘given’ to the sister of the mother, who has no children; or placed in the household of grandmother and father, or even moved to a family member in Paris who is also childless. Children have also been given as pawns, they have been part of travelling schools (Koran) since Islam entered the continent, etc.

Children and youth, however, are not only moved by others or by forces outside of their control, they may also decide to move by themselves. As is recently described in a study of child migration from rural villages in Burkina Faso to Ouagadougou, the capital city, these labour movements of children are part of a family’s livelihood; of the organisation of the family economy (…), and children consider their stay in town to work as part of their life and the normal thing to do.

Children’s and youth’s movement in its various forms can be questioned from different angles:

A. Is the labour migration of children and youth as we observe it today part of the history and rules and norms of a society? Is this mobility a new phenomenon or can it be explained in the history, rules and norms of society?

B. To which extent is the ‘exchange’ of children and youth a strategy, i.e. a technology of a family in order to create connections; that may lead to intensification of (or the forging of new) social relations; The same counts for youth though with regard to youth it is often presumed that they have more decision power than children, (but is this true?)

C. In what way are children and youth involved in these processes as creative and conscious actors themselves ?

D. What does this ‘moving’ of children and youth mean for the themselves? How does it influence their psycho-social development. This is a part of the research that enters the realm of psychology, and looks at connections in the brain… This is relevant especially in research with children, because their ‘minds’ are still in the making.

E. To what  extent are present day ‘anomalies’ street children, child soldiers, HIV-AIDS orphans, etc. indeed ‘new’ categories in the African socioscapes? How do we perceive of landscapes of mobility, i.e. how various forms, techniques, possibilities and opportunities of mobility manifest themselves in the context of inter-generational patterns ? (i.e. in the words of Catrine Christiansen thus creating 'navigating youth' ?

F. Which changing patterns are to be observed in the mobility of children and youth?....

Research into this domain of youth and children studies is only starting. In this sub programme we will not only aim at the study of different phenomena of mobility and youth and children but also question current methodologies of social research in relation to research on children and youth.

Projects (already in the making):

-         Youth in religious and political movements (ASC/CODESRIA), follow-up of conference: “… add title…” in form of research project

-         Returnee refugee youth, former child soldiers and youth that remained: forging identities and connections in post conflict Burundi (in preparation: PhD project Lidewyde Berckmoes)

-    How changing environments influence/affect children's identities & social networks (in preparation postdoc project Miranda van Reeuwijk)

-         Mobile youth, HIV-AIDS and sexuality (PhD project Ellen Blommaert; ASSR/ASC)

return to: Index page 'Connections and transformations in Africa'

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