Paper short abstract:

This study analyses the factors, motivations and aspirations of youth movements by a growing number of indigenous youth and student activists and its impact on the political and social aspects of the indigenous communities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh.

Paper long abstract:

The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region of Bangladesh, is considered the home of a number of indigenous groups, has been severely affected by the armed conflict between the state and an indigenous political group over issues of autonomy and identity following the independence of Bangladesh in 1971. Till to date the studies on identity politics in the CHT have focused on the adult political organization(s) and its ideological project 'jumma nationalism' which derived as opposed to Bengali nationalism. Currently, there is no academic research on the emerging identity politics by a growing number of indigenous youth and student activists. This indicates the social marginality and invisibility of youths in their society in particular and in the academic community in general. However, this movement illustrates the awareness of indigenous youths of CHT by being experienced new ideas and ideologies through moving from their rural villages or small towns to bigger Bengali dominated cities in Bangladesh for educational or job purposes. Against this backdrop, the overall goal of this project is to analyze factors that contributed to youth movements, the motivations and aspirations behind the movements and to what extent these movements have an impact on the political and social aspects of the indigenous communities in the CHT. By employing a qualitative multi-sited ethnography and constructivist grounded theory approach, this study uses the concepts of identity politics, politics of place and youth movement to analyze the phenomena of youth movement in the CHT.

Keywords: Youth Movement, Chittagong Hill Tracts, Identity Politics.