Paper short abstract:

Learning is not exclusively related to formal schooling, it is connected to multiple spatialities. My research among youth in Benin demonstraes that the importance and limitations of schooling can be grasped if schooling is sent into relation to other forms of more informal and gendered learning.

Paper long abstract:

Learning, as relational activities of connecting people to a given society and preparing themselves for an uncertain future, does not take place exclusively in formal learning places such as schools. To the contrary: Learning is practiced in formal as well as informal places, in households, fields, workshops, or the street. However, this multiplicity of learning, conncected to different spaces, is rarely followed by anthropological research.

Based on extensive fieldwork among youth in Northern Benin, I demonstrate that the importance of schooling, but also its limitations for processes of future building of youth can be grasped if schooling is sent into relation to other forms of more informal learning. Young men and women in the beninese hinterland often transgress different learning spaces, by combining intellectual with practical learning, often working at the same time, and, thus, learning by doing. Based on my fieldwork in which I looked at successful (former) students as well as at those who left schools after few years of learning and continued their trajectories in other places, such as workshops or informal work, I underline the concept of spatialities in order to better understand how multiplicities of learning are taking place. Part of the argument is that success cannot be connected exclusively to schooling. Rather there are different but hinghly gendered ways to make a living for underprivileged youth in Northern Benin.