Short Abstract

This youth-moderated panel invites contributions that focus on young people’s experiences of and responses to uncertain futures through ethnographic and longitudinal data that captures changes over time.

Description

Young people in the majority world are growing up amid intersecting and interconnected crises, including rapid digital technological advancement, jobless growth, climate change, unjust conflicts, and a gender equality backlash. Many of the challenges young people now face are driven by global economic inequality, alongside an absence of international political will to address its effects.

Responding to the intensified precarity of the polycrisis, many young people in the majority world have been at the forefront of social movements, digital activism, and armed violence - challenging the way academics think about aspirations, agency, power and justice.

However, much research on young people offers only a snapshot of their experiences. Understanding the impacts on young people of a decade of polycrisis requires methods which can investigate changes over time.

This panel invites contributions which draw on longitudinal (or repeat cross-sectional) data to explore young people's experiences of and responses to uncertain futures.

We are particularly interested in contributions which:

• Explore the impacts of development interventions;

• Present innovative research methods which shift power to young people;

• Offer insights into the connections between development agendas, young people’s uncertain futures, and theories of youth aspirations and agency;

• Are co-authored by young people.

Given youth involvement in global solidarity movements, the panel aims to facilitate learning across global majority and minority contexts. The session will also be moderated by young peer researchers from the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) longitudinal mixed methods study on young people in lower- and middle-income countries.

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