Greetings!

Here is a gentle reminder for those, who might be interested to submit
papers for this symposium addressing the questions related to South African
youth. The deadline for papers is 25.5.

Apologies for cross posting.

With best regards,

Tuomas Järvenpää
Doctoral Student
Social and Cultural Anthropology
University of Helsinki


*Struggle and Swagg: South African Youth Today*


*12 September 2014 University of Helsinki, Finland*

*Call for papers and sessions*

*“Struggle and Swagg: South African Youth Today”* is an international
one-day symposium organized by the University of Helsinki’s discipline of
Social and Cultural Anthropology in cooperation with South Africa’s Human
Sciences Research Council. The symposium seeks to address current issues
concerning South African youth from an interdisciplinary perspective, and
warmly welcomes contributions from the humanities and social sciences.

The symposium will approach youth as a life stage, nowadays often a
prolonged period before adulthood. According to conventional measures, such
as establishing an independent household, many South Africans remain
reluctantly “youthful” well into their 30s. South Africa is also
experiencing a demographic “bulge”, with approximately half the population
under 24 years of age. Counted within this demographic are the first South
Africans to live their lives free from the formal restrictions of the
apartheid system and independent of the anti­-apartheid struggle; the
so-called “Born Free” generation.

Subject to high levels of unemployment and relatively weak educational
options and outcomes, and both victims and perpetrators of crime,
contemporary youth in South Africa have been alternatively viewed as the
embodiment of the disappointment and dysfunction of post-apartheid society
and as a key cause of it. At the same time, South African youth are
increasingly exercising their economic muscle; youth are the key makers of
popular culture, and the key market for media and communications
technology. Youth culture, particularly popular music, has had an important
economic and social impact on South African society. This year, South
African youth will have the opportunity to express themselves at the ballot
box. The elections will be one instance for observing how the youth
understand their agency and the relevant arenas for exercising it.

This symposium seeks to understand South African youth today from
perspectives that move beyond familiar narratives of youth as a social
problem and as an undifferentiated entity. The symposium seeks to work
towards more nuanced understandings that take into account not just ethnic
and class differences, but questions of consumerism, gender, globalization,
media, migration, music, sexuality, spirituality, subculture, technology,
pedagogy and the rural/urban divide.

We invite individual presentations (30 minutes including discussion) and
complete sessions (90 minutes). Proposals (abstracts with approximately 250
words) with contact information should be submitted to
[log in to unmask]  by *25 May 2014 *Notifications of acceptance
will be sent on *30 May 2014 *by email. Keynotes and updates on symposium
programme will be updated also on the project
blog<http://www.southafricanyouthtoday.com>.
The symposium organisers regret that they are unavailable to provide funds
for the travel or accommodation costs of participants.

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