Paper short abstract:

This paper takes a closer look at the life trajectories and shifting identities between rural and urban worlds of protesting young people who were studying in the 1970s in Bamako.

Paper long abstract:

In the years following independence, all positions in the Malian administration had to be occupied by locally trained staff. To achieve that goal, the most gifted pupils of the rural settings were sent to the "Grandes Ecoles" in Bamako to pursue their education. For them, their professional career coupled with social recognition and economic comfort seemed to be secured as all university graduates at that time were obliged to sign a ten year contract to ensure their working power for the state administration. However, many of them then were involved in student protests, which were violently defeated by the ruling military junta. As a consequence, most of the protesting students were relocated to rural areas for disciplinary reasons or even had to escape into exile. Thus, their once promising and taken-for-granted futures in the urban space of Bamako all of a sudden broke up and they were confronted with profound uncertainty.

This paper takes a closer look at the shifting identities between rural and urban life-worlds of protesting young people, who were studying in the 1970s in Bamako. In their narratives, the former students portray themselves as a very special academic generation, who had the chance to get a high-quality education, but were not able to enforce their ideals about social justice.