This project employs an ethnographic approach to explore how African youths are trying to build their careers while negotiating their surrounding “reality” and attempting to put future plans into practice. In African countries where growth, tourism, ICT, and higher education are advancing (partly due to recent educational policies), young people disobey traditional authority and seek freedom in the vast opportunities offered through contact with foreigners beyond Africa’s boarders. With the shrinking of the globe facilitated by expanding information networks, young people have to deal with dynamic problems in an opportunistic and situational manner. By describing and analyzing young Africans’ “current” perceptions and practices, we will clarify the dynamics of young people in eastern Africa in the global era.
Date/Time: Sat 18 Nov 2023– Sun 19 Nov 2023 10:30–18:00
Venue: Medium Conference Room at the Administration Building, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
Language: English
Jointly sponsored by ILCAA, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) “Youth Strategies and Social Transformation under Uncertainty in South Asia” (Project number: 21H03715), TUFiSCo
Supported by African Studies Center - TUFS
【Theme】
This symposium focuses on youth ethnographically and seeks to examine, with an intersectional lens, how young people, in Eastern Africa and South Asia, understand their social world through their multiple identities -gender, caste, region, language, and nation - as well as their individual aspirations, desires, and choices. It also seeks to compare the structural factors that act as barriers to their mobility as well as identify the strategies and pathways that individuals develop for change. Through such an approach that focuses on both structure and agency, we aim to arrive at a broader understanding of the issues at hand in vastly different terrains and social communities.
The symposium seeks to address some pertinent questions: How do patriarchy, kinship, lack of (higher) education, unemployment, insecurity, and social and cultural inequalities common to these regions confront young people? How do they cope with the complexities and challenges they may encounter in their diverse social and cultural contexts? What forces compel them to make difficult choices for change? What new forms does their agency take?
We are especially interested in contributions that focus on gender, religion, and diversity with particular attention to agency. The diverse geographical sites and socio-political contexts will enrich our understanding of the themes through multiple social and regional perspectives. We hope this symposium will further enable us to arrive at a nuanced understanding of youth in diverse settings and provide a comparative background to anthropological youth studies.
【Program】※ Each Presentation 30mins + Questions and Answers for 10mins. DAY 1 (Saturday, Nov. 18th)
11:00–12:30 Casual Lunch Meeting (mainly for Young Scholars including Graduate Students)
12:30–13:00 Registration
13:00–13:10 Opening Remarks & Introduction (Wakana Shiino & Kazuyo Minamide)
13:10–13:50 Prof. Marie Lall: The Effects of Hindu Nationalism on Indian Universities; Students in the Eye of the Storm
13:50–14:30 Dr. Jane Dyson: The Contradictions of Prefigurative Politics: Rajput Young Women’s Everyday Activism in Himalayan India
14:30–14:40 Tea Break
14:40–15:20 Dr. Nirmala Ranasinghe: Can Tourism be a Powerful Life Strategy?: Through the Narratives of Young Men in Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka
15:20–16:00 Mr. Takuya Hagiwara: Is Competitive Sport a Career-building Force for Kenyan Youth?: Structured Athletic Environment and Dynamics of Embodied Agency for Social Mobility
16:00–16:40 Dr. Kinyua Laban Kithinji: Contesting the State? Digital Media Platforms as Spaces of Refuge, Safety Nets, and Justice-Seeking in Kenya
16:40–16:50 Tea Break
16:50–17:10 Comments by Discussants
(South Asia) Prof. Fumiko Oshikawa, Professor Emeritus, Kyoto University
(Africa) Dr. Eri Hashimoto, Associate Professor, Rikkyo University
18:00– Dinner
DAY 2 (Sunday, Nov. 19th)
9:40–10:00 (Venue Open)
10:00–10:40 Dr. Piotr Cichocki: The Reality Negotiations in the Collaborative Process of Local Music Making. The Case of Youth from Mzuzu, Malawi
10:40–11:20 Dr. Constance Mudondo: Navigating Market Terrain as Novices: Empowering Female Young Graduates of a Tailoring Course in Uganda
11:20–11:30 Coffee Break
11:30–12:10 Dr. Tomoyuki Chaya: Urban Slum Youth and the Significance of Secondary Education in Contemporary India: Cultivation of Perception of Self-image
12:10–13:30 LUNCH
13:30–14:10 Dr. Wakana Shiino: Female 'Youth' ‘s Choice for Their Survival: Being a Housegirl in Kenya or the Middle East
14:10–14:50 Dr. Kazuyo Minamide: “Probashir Bou (Migrant's Wives)” in a Rural Bangladesh Village: Waiting and Recreating New Family Lives
14:50–15:00 Coffee Break
15:00–15:20 Comments by Discussants
(Africa) Dr. Soichiro Shiraishi, Associate Professor, Hirosaki University
(South Asia) Prof. Tatsuya Yamamoto, Professor, Shizuoka University
15:20–16:00 General Discussion for two days
16:00–16:10 Closing Remarks
【Presenters】
South Asia
Prof. Marie Lall: Professor and Chair of Education and South Asian Studies at the UCL Institute of Education
Dr. Jane Dyson: Associate Professor in Human Geography, School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Faculty of Science, The University of Melbourne
Dr. Nirmala Ranasinghe: Associate Professor, Faculty of Regional Creation, Nara Prefectural University
Dr. Tomoyuki Chaya: Lecturer, Graduate School of Education, Hyogo University of Teacher Education
Dr. Kazuyo Minamide: Associate Professor, Department of English, Kobe College
Africa
Mr. Takuya Hagiwara: Assistant Professor, Faculty of Health and Sports Sciences, Toyo University
Dr. Kinyua Laban Kithinji: Researcher, Institute of Asian Cultures, Sophia University
Dr. Piotr Cichocki: Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw
Dr. Constance Mudondo: Lecturer, Makerere University
Dr. Wakana Shiino: Associate Professor, Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
Jointly sponsored by ILCAA Joint Research Project “Global Youth Dynamics and ‘reality’ negotiation in Eastern Africa”, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) “The study of ‘Cohabitat family’ with elite single and house girl in the cities of East African countries” (Principal Investigator: Wakana SHIINO (ILCAA) Project Number: 17K02002)
Jointly sponsored by ILCAA Joint Research Project “Global Youth Dynamics and ‘reality’ negotiation in Eastern Africa”,Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) “The study of ‘Cohabitat family’ with elite single and house girl in the cities of East African countries” (Principal Investigator: Wakana SHIINO (ILCAA) Project Number: 17K02002)
Jointly sponsored by ILCAA Joint Research Project “Global Youth Dynamics and ‘reality’ negotiation in Eastern Africa”,Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) “The study of ‘Cohabitat family’ with elite single and house girl in the cities of East African countries” (Principal Investigator: Wakana SHIINO (ILCAA) Project Number: 17K02002)
Jointly sponsored by ILCAA Joint Research Project “Global Youth Dynamics and ‘reality’ negotiation in Eastern Africa”,Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) “The study of ‘Cohabitat family’ with elite single and house girl in the cities of East African countries” (Principal Investigator: Wakana SHIINO (ILCAA) Project Number: 17K02002)
1. Keiya HANABUCHI (ILCAA Joint Researcher, Hokkaido Medical University)
“Migration and Solidarity: Comorian Youth Diaspora in Transnational Social Space”
2. Takuma OTANI (ILCAA Joint Researcher, Graduate School of Kyoto University)
“Formation of group norms and maintenance of order by voluntary organizations for motorcycle taxi drivers in urban Uganda” (tentative)
Jointly sponsored by ILCAA Joint Research Project “Global Youth Dynamics and ‘reality’ negotiation in Eastern Africa”,Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) “The study of ‘Cohabitat family’ with elite single and house girl in the cities of East African countries” (Principal Investigator: Wakana SHIINO (ILCAA) Project Number: 17K02002)
1. Wakana SHIINO (ILCAA)
Introduction
2. All members of this project
“The condition of Youths in my field: concerning this project”
Date/Time: Sat 28 Jan 2023– Sun 29 Jan 2023 9:00–19:00
Venue: 303, Online meeting
Language: English
Jointly sponsored by TUFS Field Science Commons (TUFiSCo), Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (Principal Investigator: Wakana SHIINO (ILCAA) Project Number: 22H00769), Field Science Center (FSC), African Studies Center, TUFS
Theme Abstract:
Despite the international development organizations’ efforts toward mitigation of learner single motherhood, early pregnancies, and HIV prevalence among societies in Africa, these issues have remained persistently incremental in the last one decade and more recently worsened during COVID-19 pandemic. Menstrual poverty and related WASH problems remain systemic. What explains this trend? Prior to colonial invasion, sexuality was central to every society whereby the family was the educational pivot. The events that followed colonial occupation repositioned the sexuality values toward ‘presumed modernity’. The transitioning from the traditional to the ‘presumed modern’ practices has mutated into dynamic between-ness. In this symposium, we ethnographically interrogate this between-ness and associated complications. We tackle the sensitivities of sexuality in some societies and address the cultural, religious, and political dimensions of sexual education and practices. We identify the existential gaps in the sexual education in the life cycle of a ‘presumed modern African’ society.