Dear Youth Study Mailing List Colleagues,

The volume editors of the Oxford Handbook of Global South Youth Studies (forthcoming 2020), Sharlene Swartz, Adam Cooper, Clarence Batan and Rosa-Maria Camarena-Cordova, invite contributions and partnerships towards this important and exciting new project. Please feel free to circulate this call to other colleagues who you think will have a contribution to make.

Why a new handbook?

Ninety percent of the world’s youth live in Africa, Latin America and the developing countries of Asia. Despite this, the field of Youth Studies, like many other academic domains, is dominated by the knowledge economy of the global North especially WENA (Western Europe, North America and Australia), with its associated universities, disciplines, theories, journals and conferences. While Northern Youth Studies’ theory and research provides insights into the lives of Southern youth, it contains assumptions and generalisations that are contextually incongruent with Southern youth’s life-worlds. To address these geo-political imbalances, this handbook turns the gaze of Youth Studies onto youth living in the global South and the theories and practices needed to address their lives. It is hoped that the handbook will function as an intervention to re-orient Youth Studies as a whole. In other words, the handbook will ask what do Southern theorists have to contribute to the study of youth in the Global South, and how might these ideas contribute to Global Youth Studies?

Handbook outline

We attach the full details of the proposal accepted by Oxford University Press separately but summarise it below.

Foreword

Chapter 1               INTRODUCTION: Knowledge, epistemicide and justice

Part 1: The South and Southern Youth

These are foundational chapters and have largely been allocated amongst the editors. Feel free to propose a partnership for any of these chapters or let us know if you’d like to review one of these chapters.

Chapter 2               THE SOUTH: Who, what and where is the Global South?

Chapter 3               SOUTHERN YOUTH: Who are global South youth and how are they the same as or different to Global North youth?

Chapter 4               SOUTHERN THEORY: What is Southern theory and how does it aid in engaging Southern youth?

Chapter 5               YOUTH STUDIES: What is youth studies and why should Southern youth be studied?

Part 2: Southern contributions to youth studies – a new perspective linking theoretical concepts to contemporary issues

Here we envisage three essays that address each of the following theoretical aspects of young people in the Global South. Feel free to propose a chapter on a concept not listed here that you believe has salience.

Chapter 6–8          PERSONHOOD: Being, Identity, Knowing, Belonging, Representation, Equality, Dignity, Humanising, Recognition, Respect

Chapter 9–11       INTERSECTIONALITY: Race, Class, Gender, Inequality, Stratification, Oppression, Domination, Enslavement, and Exploitation

Chapter 12–14    VIOLENCES: Physical violence, Structural violence, Symbolic violence, Decolonisation, Liberation, Freedom, Power, Legacies of oppression

Chapter 15–17    CONSCIOUSNESS: Black Consciousness, Wokeness, Allyship, Conscientising, Critical consciousness, Pitfalls of national consciousness, Corruption, Mobility, Tall poppy syndrome, Symbolic violence, Capitalism, Absence

Chapter 18–20    PRECARITY: Capitals, Marginality, Material deficits, Periphery, Instability, Unpredictability, Resources, Wealth, and Poverty

Chapter 21–23    SOLIDARITY: Collectivity, Community, Participation, Autonomy, Social harmony, Social cohesion, Kinship, Interconnectedness, Capabilities, and Continuity

Chapter 24–26    ONTOLOGICAL INSECURITY: Genocide, Epistemicide, Linguicide, Waithood, Corporatisation

Chapter 27–29    NAVIGATIONAL CAPACITIES: Improvising, Strategising, Hustling, Surviving, Capabilities, Skills

Chapter 30–32    COLLECTIVE AGENCY: Resistance, Revolution, Chimurenga

Part 3: Defining the field: Southern youth research, policy and practice

Here we envisage a broad overview and proposals for how each area should and could be developed from a Southern perspective, and how these proposals differ from current approaches in the Global North.

Chapter 33            METHODOLOGIES Emancipatory methodologies and methods from the South

Chapter 34            RESEARCH An evolving agenda for Critical Global South Youth Studies

Chapter 35            INTERVENTIONS Transferable interventions for Southern Youth

Chapter 36            POLICY Innovative Southern youth policy recommendations

Chapter 37            CONCLUSION: Decolonising drifts and shifts, convergences and divergences over time in the South

What contributions are we looking for?

We are especially interested in contributions to Section 2, the nine concepts we have identified (for example personhood, intersectionality, violences, consciousness) that we believe will advance our understanding of the lives of youth in one or more regions of the global South. Each essay will be an original work (4,000 words), predominantly by Southern scholars using mainly Southern theorists or their own theoretical frameworks to develop their chapters, to offer insights into the lives of Southern youth. Contributors could also re-imagine and translate Northern theories into Southern contexts. Wherever possible authors should offer comparative perspectives of Southern contexts and young people. For Section 3 authors could make suggestions for how methodologies, research, interventions and policies may be developed from a Southern perspective, and how these differ from current research and practice in the Global North.

Who would we like to contribute?

Contributors will predominately be from the Global South (working in either the North or South) or from the diaspora or aboriginal communities in the North. While the handbook is open to contributions from Scholars working on the Global South but who are not from the Global South, we expect these contributions to be in a minority or to be in partnership with Southern scholars.

What a proposal for a chapter should consist of?

·       The entire proposal should be no more than 1 page long.

·       An abstract of approximately 300 words that describes your ideas for addressing a particular concept, with the theory/ies you will advance or the theorist/s you will use, the key argument you will make, the regions addressed and youth studies issues that will be engaged in their chapter.

·       A brief outline of the proposed chapter including sub-headings and the focus of each sub-section.

·       A short biosketch (150 word maximum) that includes your research areas, national origin, current institution and motivation for involvement in this project.

Evaluation of submissions

Proposals will be reviewed by the volume editors according to the following criteria:

·       Does the chapter contribute to advancing a Southern approach to youth studies?

·       Is it an original piece of work, not previously published, and contributing to knowledge?

·       Is it critical and theoretically informed? Does it use empirical evidence?

·       Does it contain some comparative aspects across Southern contexts?

·       Is the author from the Global South or the diaspora, or if not, are there other compelling reasons to accept their contribution?

Important dates

Where to submit proposals?

Please send questions and proposals (abstract, brief outline and biosketch) to any of the following:

Sharlene Swartz: [log in to unmask]

Adam Cooper [log in to unmask]

Clarence Batan [log in to unmask]

Rosa-Maria Camarena-Cordova [log in to unmask] (Spanish proposals welcome)

Warm regards

Sharlene

Prof. Sharlene Swartz

Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa

Adj. Assoc. Prof: Department of Sociology, University of Cape Town

Adj. Prof: Department of Philosophy, University of Fort Hare

@sharleneswartz

Skype: sharleneswartz

Tel: +27 83 310 7100 or +27 21 466 7874