Africa: Child and Youth Studies Institute: 2007 Session

CODESRIA
Child and Youth Studies Institute:
2007 Session Theme: African Youth Cultures and the ICT Revolution

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce the sixth session of its Child and Youth Studies Institute and invites interested scholars to send applications for consideration for selection as laureates, resource persons, and director in the session which is scheduled for October 2007. The Institute is an off-shoot of the Council’s Child and Youth Studies Programme and is designed to strengthen analytic capacity on all questions affecting children and the youth in Africa and elsewhere in the world. The impetus for the introduction of the Institute was strengthened by the critique emanating from African researchers of the content and context of the developmental crises facing the continent and the link between these problems and what is now generally referred to as the Child and Youth Question. The Institute is, therefore, designed as an annual multidisciplinary forum where participants can reflect together on a specific aspect of the conditions of children and the youth in Africa and, in so doing, contribute to the advancement of the frontiers of knowledge and policy. Each session is held over a period of four weeks under the leadership of a designated director.

For the 2007 session of the Institute, the theme that has been selected is African Youth Cultures and the ICT Revolution. This is a theme that has become crucial to explore not only because of the increasingly important place which new information and communications technologies (ICTs) are occupying in the lives and outlook of the younger members of society but also the variety of cultures and sub-cultures which are being woven around them in the making of contemporary youth identity. The global ICT revolution has been refracted into Africa in a variety of forms, including mobile telephony, global telecasts delivered locally in real time, new generation video machines, new digital technologies covering an ever-widening range of applications, computers and computer-based technologies, and internet services. These new ICTs have impacted directly on economy and society in many different ways that have been the objects of some research in terms of the manner in which they are transforming broad social practices and modes of economic organisation. While there is still much more work to be done on the transformatory impact of ICTs on African economies and societies, there are even more urgent challenges in assessing the ways in which various societal players may be responding to the entry of the new ICTs into the contemporary socio-economic and political processes. Of particular interest in this regard are the youths, a social category which is generally more adaptable to technological changes but which, in any case, has figured among the quickest and largest numbers of takers in the rapidly changing technological terrain that has characterised the last two decades in Africa. In the hands of the African youth - as, indeed, the youth elsewhere in the world – ICTs have been a powerful tool in the making and re-making of identities which carry generational and inter-generational implications; they have also spurned new cultures and sub-cultures which have been the objects of anecdotal comments but hardly of systematic research. In what ways, for example, has the mobile phone become a part of youth identities and what cultures and sub-cultures have developed around it? How are the ICTs affecting inter-generational perceptions and relationships? What kinds of real and virtual communities are being forged by a generation of African youth adept at working the internet and negotiating the cyber space? Responding to these questions and others of their type calls for careful empirical research that might enable the research community to better understand the dialectics of the ICTs in relation to the youth in Africa. Under what conditions are the ICTs empowering and in what circumstances do they become disempowering of the youth? Are young Africans only in the ICTs market as consumers or are they also innovators at the frontier of the adaptation of the technologies to the exigencies of the local environment that they inhabit? Are the ICTs and the borderlessness which they imply in some cases evidence of the emergence of a new generation of globalised citizens or the harbingers of new boundaries that require to be surmounted?

Through the theme of the 2007 session, participants in the Institute are being invited to undertake a critical assessment of the different dimensions of youth cultures and sub-cultures associated with the ICTs. Participants will be encouraged to review the relevant literature that is emerging on the subject; analyse the empirical evidence which is available both from their own field work and other sources; construct conceptual, theoretical, and methodological tools that could help to deepen knowledge, as well as advance debate; and consider the challenges for further research which arise from their scholarly interventions. Among some of the topics which it is hoped the Institute will cover are: Patterns of youth communications in the ICT age, including text messages, instant messaging, e-mail groups, shared mobile phone communities, etc; popular vs. elite youth cultures around the ICTs; the youth in cyberspace and virtual communities; the emergence of new public spheres driven by the deployment of ICTs by the youth; modes of youth consumption, including fashion and music, associated with the ICTs; new processes and forms of value construction among the youth in the digital age; the variety of gender issues and patterns integral to youth cultures around the ICTs; and youth protest and solidarity in the cyber era. For the purpose of the work they would be undertaking, participants in the Institute will have access to the resources of the CODESRIA Documentation and Information Centre (CODICE) and the expertise of a team of experienced resource persons.

Laureats

Candidates wishing to be considered for selection as laureates in the Institute should normally be researchers based in African institutions and who have completed their university education/professional training. Furthermore, they should have a demonstrable interest in the Child and Youth Question. Self-sponsoring non-African candidates will also be considered for a limited number of spaces in the Institute. A total of 15 laureates will be selected from the applications received. All candidates are required to submit an application which should include:

i) A letter of request for consideration for admission into the Institute, complete with all available contact details (e-mail, telephone, and fax);
ii) a research proposal of not more than ten pages linked clearly to the theme of the Institute and with a well-defined problematic;
iii) A current curriculum vitae;
iv) An official letter of institutional affiliation; and
v) Two reference letters.

Resource Persons
Four resource persons will be selected to work with the Director of the Institute to animate the discussions and debates that would be held. The resource persons are required to deliver lectures which not only help the laureates to stimulate their reflections on the theme of the Institute but also to revise their research proposals. As such, the resource persons must have a strong scholarly track record on the Institute theme. Each resource person will be given a slot to make up to three presentations to the laureates; resource persons will also be encouraged to offer comments on the proposals of the laureates. Once selected, resource persons will be required to write up the presentations they would be making so that these can be circulated in advance to the laureates. After the Institute, they will be expected to revise their presentations for consideration for publication by the Council in a volume devoted to the theme of the session in which they participated.

Candidates wishing to considered for selection as resource persons are requested to:

i) Submit a letter of application;
ii) A copy of their curriculum vitae;
iii) An outline of not more than five pages of the issues they would like to tackle within the theme of the Institute and spread over three lectures of two hours each; and
iv) A reading list to accompany the presentation they would be making.

Director

The Director takes on the overall responsibility for managing the scientific sessions of the Institute not only in terms of designing an overall programme of presentations and discussions but also assisting the laureates to get the best out of the programme. The director is also expected to edit the proceedings of the Institute once the reports of the laureates and the revised papers of the resource persons are received. Candidates for this position should be accomplished scholars who will be able both to guide and inspire the laureates. Those wishing to be considered for this role are requested to send:

i) A letter of application;
ii) A copy of their curriculum vitae;
iii) A detailed course outline on the theme of the Institute and which should also be divided into sub-themes that they would wish to see covered during the Institute; and
iv) A bibliographic list to accompany the proposed course outline.

All applications received for consideration as laureates, resource persons and director will be screened by an independent selection committee made up of eminent scholars with expertise on the theme of the Institute. The deadline for the receipt of applications is: 31 August, 2007. Applications should be sent to:

The Child and Youth Studies Institute, CODESRIA, Avenue Cheikh Anta Diop (Angle Canal IV), BP 3304, CP 18524, Dakar, Senegal.

Tel: +221-8259822/23 Fax: +221-8241289 E-Mail: [email][email protected] Web Site: http://www.codesria.org