African Youth and Urban Social Movements: Possible Becomings of a Time-in-Itself
African Youth and Urban Social Movements: Possible Becomings of a Time-in-Itself
Tuesday, 8 July 2025: 16:45
Location: CUF2 (Faculty of Education Sciences (FSE))
Oral Presentation
For the last 20 years, Africa has been the continent with the highest urbanisation rate, and the largest youth populations in the world. There, being young and living informally in cities is the rule rather than the exception. The lives of the young and marginalised in African cities are marked by quotidian interconnected problems deriving from the climate crisis, unsustainable economic pattern, political conflicts, rampant inequalities, and systematic exclusion from decision-making. While this scenario poses undermines African youth's trust in current systems and institutions, it also ignites their commitment to mobilise for a better future, with much of that engagement being channeled through urban social movements.
In the past decades, specialised scholarship on social movements has grown. However, it is yet to grapple with the subjective narratives and potential of youth collectives as emancipatory actors, particularly those from urban Africa. Conversely, even though the lives of the young and marginalised in cities are being studied through multiple dimensions and lenses, there persists a lingering characterisation of youth, and particularly African youth, as a paradoxical reality. There is a dearth of studies examining young people’s participation in social movements in the African continent, alongside the causes that mobilise them.
This paper highlights the multiple and diverse contributions of marginalised youth collectives both to the conversation and action towards emancipation, as well as to social movements’ theory and practice. Moving away from relentless dichotomies, this research a) offers a review of the dimensions (economic, social, political, intersectional), and lenses (conceptual, categorical, phenomenological, developmental, ideological) that have characterised previous scholarly work; and b) proposes an integrative framework to move beyond compartmentalisations through a tripartite conceptualisation of youth; as a dialectical becoming (away from linearity); as a possibility (beyond a phenomenon), and as a time-for-itself.
In the past decades, specialised scholarship on social movements has grown. However, it is yet to grapple with the subjective narratives and potential of youth collectives as emancipatory actors, particularly those from urban Africa. Conversely, even though the lives of the young and marginalised in cities are being studied through multiple dimensions and lenses, there persists a lingering characterisation of youth, and particularly African youth, as a paradoxical reality. There is a dearth of studies examining young people’s participation in social movements in the African continent, alongside the causes that mobilise them.
This paper highlights the multiple and diverse contributions of marginalised youth collectives both to the conversation and action towards emancipation, as well as to social movements’ theory and practice. Moving away from relentless dichotomies, this research a) offers a review of the dimensions (economic, social, political, intersectional), and lenses (conceptual, categorical, phenomenological, developmental, ideological) that have characterised previous scholarly work; and b) proposes an integrative framework to move beyond compartmentalisations through a tripartite conceptualisation of youth; as a dialectical becoming (away from linearity); as a possibility (beyond a phenomenon), and as a time-for-itself.