Prof Alcinda Honwana and Dr Naomi Pendle

This course is available on the MPA in International Development, MPA in Public Policy and Management, MPA in Public and Economic Policy, MPA in Public and Social Policy, MPA in Social Impact, MSc in Development Studies, MSc in Gender (Sexuality), MSc in Health and International Development, MSc in International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies and MSc in Political Economy of Late Development. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

Students will be allocated places to courses with priority to ID and joint-degree students.  If there are more ID and joint-degree students than the course can accommodate, these spots will be allocated randomly.  

Non-ID/Joint Degree students will be allocated to spare places by random selection with the preference given first to those degrees where the regulations permit this option.

Previous study of the social sciences or humanities is preferred.

The framework for this course considers the economic, social and political aspects of international development as reference points to examine structural inequalities affecting young men and women. It will consider young people’s socio-economic and political exclusion as well as their challenging transitions into adulthood. The course will address issues concerning education, health, labour markets, the household, family, marriage and social reproduction. Youth social and political engagement and participation will be studied through the lenses of military mobilisation, social movements, political protests and contributions to processes of social change. The course will also examine the gendered constructions of young women and young men’s places in the public and domestic spheres. It will interrogate assumptions about young people’s lives and bodies made by development and public policy and the ways in which such are challenged or reinforced. The course will discuss diverse forms of violence – structural, organised, physical and sexual - perpetrated against and by youth in contexts of war, conflict and radicalisation, as well as in post-conflict processes of reconciliation, reintegration and humanitarian assistance in times of ‘peace’. A particular focus will be given to the agency young people by exploring issues of identity, religion, culture and power and the way these permeate private and public life.

15 hours of lectures and 15 hours of classes in the MT.

There will be a ninety-minute revision session in late LT or early ST. There will be a Reading Week in week 6.

Students will be expected to write a short paper of 800-1000 words on the topic on which they will lead a class.

Honwana, Alcinda. (2012). The Time of Youth: Work Social Change and Politics in Africa. Bolder and London: Kumarian Press, Lynne Rienner. Chapter 2: Waithood; Chapter 3: Aspirations; and Chapter 4: Getting By.

Sommers, Marc. (2011). Stuck: Rwandan Youth and the Struggle for Adulthood. Atlanta: University of Georgia Press. Chapter 5: Striving for Adulthood, pp. 115-139

Mannheim, Karl. 1952 (1927). The problem of generations. In Essays on the Sociology of knowledge. Edited by Paul Kecskemeti. London: Routledge.

Jeffrey, Craig. (2010). Timepass: Youth, class, and time among unemployed young men in India. American Ethnologist, Vol. 37, No. 3, pp. 465–48.

Thieme, Tatiana, (2018).  The hustle economy: Informality, uncertainty and the geographies of getting by. Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 42(4) 529–548

Honwana, Alcinda (2013). Youth and Revolution in Tunisia. London: Zed Books 

De Boeck, F.  and Honwana, A. (2005). Introduction: Children & Youth in Africa. In Markers and Breakers: Children and Youth in Post-Colonial Africa. In Honwana, A. and F. De Boeck (Eds). Oxford: James Currey; Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press; Dakar: Codesria.

Case study (80%) and presentation (20%).

The course will be assessed by a seminar presentation and a researched developed case study.