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Call for Papers: "Generation Exodus? Youth Mobility Politics and Radical Change in West Africa"
Workshop by the Nordic Africa Institute and CODESRIA (Hybrid, 08 - 09 December 2022)
This hybrid workshop invites a collective reflection on the role of human mobility in shaping West Africa’s economic, political, and social future, with a particular focus on the practices, aspirations, and reflections of young people in the region. The workshop seeks to facilitate an exchange between researchers, decision makers, policy analysts, and youth activists on this important theme.
Young people are often at the frontlines of political mobilisation and societal change. In many West African contexts, human mobility has become increasingly central to such forces. In the Sahel region in particular, jihadist violence has generated the fastest growing displacement crisis in the world. At the same time, European interventions in the aftermath of the so-called refugee crisis of 2015-16 are challenging the region’s long-standing principles of free movement. How do these challenges affect the outlooks and roles of young people in the subregion? Whereas the 2010s may be said to have been a decade where young people were making their voices heard on the streets, from Cairo to Cape Town, many observers outside the continent now fear that the future will be one of increased emigration towards the global north. These fears often centre on the continent’s projected population growth, and the threat of conflict and climate related displacements. Is there a shift from a generation of voice to a generation exodus?
Deadline: 31 October 2022.
