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- Convenors:
-
Anthony Okeregbe
(University of Lagos)
Raymond Frempong (University of Bayreuth)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Streams:
- Sociology (x) Futures (y)
- Location:
- Philosophikum, S68
- Sessions:
- Friday 2 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
This panel solicits critical engagement of young scholars with the various categories of spatial and temporal entanglement of Africa's teeming youth population on the move, and seeks to examine how these entangled mobilities are affecting the future leadership of the continent.
Long Abstract:
Recent events in many parts of Africa have questioned the hackneyed aphorism signalling a promising future for young people. Silenced by a growing draconian gerontocracy, emasculated by a decadent system of dysfunctional education with high unemployment rate, and non-existent succession management, many African youths have sought migration to the Global North, where the best of them are absorbed by host countries and the rest contained to a life of fruitless hopefulness. The disempowered others remain at home to relive the cycle of entrapment open to crime, extremism and violence. All this tends to impede progress and jeopardise the future of a continent whose youth population (age 0-34) stands at 58.0 per cent of its total population (Rocca and Schultes, 2021). How can the capacity and potential of youth for generating new ideas be linked to crucial needs of the continent? What do African leaders need to do to build beneficial connections with the youth for social and political engagement? How can supportive policies and inclusive youth development for leadership at critical levels in society be achieved? What does Africa need to do not to lose its youth to "extra-continental migration" and extremism? This panel solicits critical engagement of young scholars with the various categories of spatial and temporal entanglement of Africa's teeming youth population on the move, and seeks to examine how these entangled mobilities are affecting the future leadership of the continent.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 2 June, 2023, -Abisoye Eleshin (University of Lagos) Taibat Lawanson (University of Lagos) Victor Onifade (University of Lagos)
Paper short abstract:
This study examines the perception of young people in a Lagos low-income community about their lived experiences as slum dwellers and their place in a changing world. The study views the community through the eyes of its young, as they envision a future in which they play a catalytic role.
Paper long abstract:
Young people in slums make up a demographic majority in many African cities. They are daily confronted with challenges of poverty and lack of opportunities, and they respond to these in a variety of ways. These experiences also inform their understanding of their place in the city and their aspirations. Understanding the nature of the risks faced by youth in low-income urban areas and how they are impacted by them remain important questions for the future of African cities. This study interrogates - from youth perspectives - challenges and responses to everyday-life in Makoko, a marginalized urban community in Lagos, Nigeria. The study queries the long-held notion that young people should be seen and not heard. By focusing on young people aged between 15-20, we seek to understand (i) How they see themselves in the context of their lived experiences as slum dwellers and as residents of a megacity ; and (ii) How these experiences shape their understanding of their world and their aspirations for the future. Through a series of interviews and focus group discussions, we find that there is a strong place attachment to the slum, hence young people in Makoko see technology and education as tools for empowering themselves to dream as well as create a better future for themselves and their kin.
Moses Yakubu (University of Lagos)
Paper short abstract:
This paper interrogates youth migration from the perspectives of ‘serve me breakfast’ (disappointment and inability to navigate difficult situations), and japa (fleeing unprofitable environment or a failing state). It discusses the implications and what should be done to halt this horrendous trend.
Paper long abstract:
Although the migration of young people to developed countries has been in existence before 2000, the trend seems to have taken a new turn in the preceding decades, especially in the 2020s. The present wave of youth migration for greener pastures are now being characterised by two street slang, ‘serve me breakfast’ and japa. While ‘serve me breakfast’ connotes the inability to get through difficult situations, or disappointment from government, groups/bodies or individuals who should have delivered on certain promises but failed, japa implies escaping from a disappointing environment, people and a failing society. Using the Nigerian State, this paper seeks to explore some aspects of ‘serve me breakfast’ within the country, and how this underlines the japa syndrome. It interrogates the nature and/or patterns of japa among young people. While establishing the nexus between ‘serve me breakfast’ and japa, this paper discusses the implications of these phenomena for the development of human capital and the nation as a whole. It highlights plausible blueprints that will contain the transcontinental movement of young people. It adopts both primary and secondary sources of data collection. Also, randomly selected respondents will be interviewed to elicit necessary information in order to corroborate other data. This paper anchors on the relative deprivation theory of migration. It is historical, descriptive and analytical in its presentation.
Keywords: ‘serve me breakfast,’ japa, human capital, sustainable development, Nigerian youth
Peter Oni (University of Lagos)
Paper short abstract:
Studies on youth migration precisely in the world and specifically Africa are often carried out at the individual and structural levels more from a social and economic background. However, an analysis of the causes of migration grounds it in the specific feature of man to desire to know.
Paper long abstract:
Rethinking the epistemic foundation of migration
Peter ONI (PhD)
University of Lagos (Nigeria)
Faculty of Arts
Department of Philosophy
Tel. (+234) 8033486140; (+234) 9067381104
Email: onipeter@hotmail.com
pioni@unilag.edu.ng
Abstract
Studies on migration precisely of youth in the world and specifically Africa are often approached at the individual and structural levels from a cultural, social, economic political and environmental background. However, an in-depth analysis of the origin and causes of migration reveals other factors related to the nature of man and his specific feature to desire to know himself and the world. In fact, this cardinal human feature is generally ignored for more celebrated factors such as the economic and the environmental. Indeed, human movement is best understood when it is explained through the prism of the desiring being of man. It is against this background that this paper rethinks through an existential phenomenological approach, the epistemic foundation of migration. It argues that migration is fundamentally human as the nature of man is to desire what is not yet there. It also establishes through the network theory that youth migration may not stop in Africa until a sound programme is put in place to ground youth networking and knowledge acquisition.
Key Words: Africa, epistemic, knowledge, youth migration, youth networking.