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- Convenor:
-
Nicola Banks
(University of Manchester)
Send message to Convenor
- Location:
- F34 (Richmond building)
- Start time:
- 7 September, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
Urban youth devise multiple strategies to deal with economic insecurity. What opportunities do local and national politics offer young people for extending opportunities for income generation and livelihoods security.
Long Abstract:
One of the central tenets of Habitat III's call for sustainable and inclusive urban development is full and productive employment for all. Yet this appears little more than a pipe dream to young people in cities across the Global South, dampening expectations and generating anxiety and frustration. This insecurity often translates into political instability (Sommers 2006; Phillips 2013) and unemployed young men are often characterised as potentially dangerous agents of social change and violence.
We explore the extent to which local urban economies in Bangladesh, Uganda and Ethiopia have met the employment needs of their young people and the multiple ways in which politics, political engagement and/or state-led programmes are filling in the gulf between employment needs and employment realities.
With opportunity landscapes constrained by the nature of local labour markets, how do urban youth use the political landscape to extend opportunities for security and accumulation? What efforts have the state made in tackling the youth unemployment challenge and what are the prime motivations behind these? Are these strategies and programmes sustainable from young people's perspectives, or do they offer opportunities for survival with little chance of enhanced future prospects? What are the terms of inclusion of participation in these opportunities and their influence on meeting goals of inclusive urban development?
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the complex entanglement between labour, youth and party politics in Dhaka city.
Paper long abstract:
Employment opportunities for urban poor youth in Bangladesh are mostly high risk and precarious. Youth rely on boro bhai, fictive big brothers, for security and opportunities, often necessitating political allegiances and participation in violence. This paper will examine such relationships through the case of a prominent bazar in Dhaka city. It will explore the entanglement between youth, labour and party politics during a politically fractious period between 2014-2015, showing how a group of young labourers negotiated the complex choices, risk and opportunities this posed.
Paper short abstract:
This paper uses the case of Uganda's informal security sector, with an emphasis on Crime Preventers, to illustrate the mutually reinforcing relationship between Uganda's militarized neo-patrimonial system and youth employment insecurity.
Paper long abstract:
Before Uganda's 2016 elections, the government recruited thousands of "Crime Preventers"—mostly unemployed male youths—ostensibly to bolster security during the electoral season. Many claimed that Crime Preventers would be used "as tools" to rig the elections, intimidate voters, and vote en masse for the ruling NRM regime. In contrast, this paper shows that the government never intended the crime preventers to play an explicitly coercive role. Instead, the program represents an important dimension of how Uganda's militarized neo-patrimonial regime manages a vast population of unemployed and dissatisfied youths that makes up a significant part of Uganda's electorate. In creating a new security program with no barriers to entry, the NRM effectively extended its neo-patrimonial machine to placate a constituency that otherwise felt neglected by the government, and thus was prone to support the opposition. The program attracted unemployed youth through three main pathways: first, a widespread social stigma against idling; second, the promise of short-, medium-, and long-term economic rewards; and third, an opportunity to develop social networks, which can help with coping and "social navigation" (Vigh 2009). Thus, the program functioned primarily as a short-term extension of patrimonialism targeting unemployed youths, in contrast to the oft-emphasized framing of a political militia.
Paper short abstract:
After a prolonged and deadly protest, Ethiopian government launched a £346 million Revolving Youth Fund to finance youth entrepreneurship programs. A similar approach was adopted 12 years ago to regain legitimacy after a post-election crisis. Can youth employment contribute to state legitimacy?
Paper long abstract:
Youth entrepreneurship has been the most dominant policy recommendation to address the problems of youth unemployment. Similar to many actors, the Ethiopian government also adopts youth entrepreneurship as a solution to improve young peoples' livelihood. Especially in urban areas, facilitating entrepreneurship and self-employment through micro and small-scale enterprises are considered a silver bullet for every youth-related problem. But, what is the real driving factor behind prioritizing entrepreneurship as a panacea to every youth related socio-economic and political problem? This paper takes two historically significant political moments in recent Ethiopian history to argue that state legitimacy is the primary driving factor. The paper takes the post- 2005 election crisis and the recent uprising in Ethiopia (November 2015 - September 2016) as two crucial moments. During both political crises, thousands of young people protested against the government. Hundreds were killed and thousands were imprisoned. After both incidents, the government launched massive micro and small-scale programs to enroll urban youth into self-employment and entrepreneurship programs. The government framed youth unemployment as a threat to state stability. As a result, the government launched new policy frameworks and makes available huge financial resource targeting youth unemployment. The paper asks, how sustainable are these policies in improving urban youth livelihood? The paper builds on a qualitative data collected as part of a doctoral study and critical discourse analysis of legal and policy frameworks focused on youth employment in Ethiopia.
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on long-term fieldwork on public transport in Dar es Salaam, this paper explores the structural causes of the dramatic employment situation faced by the Tanzanian urban youth, and the politics and constraints underpinning the strategies of young workers to navigate under and unemployment.
Paper long abstract:
Drawing on long-term fieldwork on informal public transport in Dar es Salaam, this paper explores the structural drivers of the dramatic employment situation faced by the Tanzanian urban youth.
The paper will analyse how work in the infamous daladalas, the private buses which provide the cheapest form of public transport in Dar es Salaam, constitute a key source of precarious employment for thousands of young people. The presentation will also explore the way in which the oversupply of unskilled workers affects the relationship between bus owners and workers. Finally, the presentation will discuss the politics, at both macro and micro level, and the constraints underpinning the strategies of young workers to navigate un- and under-employment.