Youth in the Global South: Emerging Theories, Methodologies, Histories and Policies
Abstract Submissions Closed
RC34 Sociology of Youth (host committee)
Language: English
Scholarship from the Global North has long dominated the study of youth. In considering the possible futures youth demand and require, might it not be time to step back from global comparisons across the North-South divide and instead ask what alternative or complementary theories, policies, histories and methodologies Global South scholars can offer to the sociological study of youth?
This themed session seeks to question how and whether the theories, methodologies, histories and policies of youth scholarship in the Global North are relevant, applicable and necessary to those in the Global South. It invites papers that ask how or whether approaches to youth scholarship differ between the Global North and the Global South, and is particularly interested in papers that:
- reflect on the methodologies in youth scholarship that have emerged from the South and to what effect;
- analyse existing and introduce new sociological theories that address youth futures in the South;
- address post-colonial histories of youth alongside contemporary actions in the South;
- and interrogate youth policies that uniquely address contexts and conditions of Southern youth.
The session is focused on elevating, showcasing and encouraging contemporary youth scholarship in the Global South – that includes the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). It is open to convergences, divergences, possibilities, speculations, and beginning new debates or fuelling older ones. For example, the possibilities of agency and resistance in adversity; the usefulness of sub-cultures theory in conflict contexts, and social and cultural reproduction in fragile landscapes.
Short, innovative, provocative papers marked clearly as theory, methodology, histories or policy are invited and should aim to push forward the boundaries of Southern scholarship. There will be brief, invited responses to each paper to stimulate debate and discussion.