Youth and social change across borders: emerging identities and
divisions in Eastern and Western Europe

27th - 28th March 2009

St. Antony's College, University of Oxford

Youth studies has traditionally provided a rich, interdisciplinary forum
for the exploration of a range of social identities and divisions rooted
in class, gender, ethnicity and place. It has also been the site on
which contemporary social theory - pointing in recent years to
late-modern processes of globalisation, individualisation and risk -
have received some of their most illustrative applications, as well as
their most incisive critiques. This conference asks what the study of
young people in and from post-Socialist Eastern Europe can tell us about
the emerging dimensions of social inequality and social change both in
Eastern and Western European societies. Building on youth studies' long
standing critique of popular discourses constructing youth 'as/in
trouble', the conference wishes to move debate decisively away from the
common perception of young people in post-Socialist countries as a 'lost
generation'. 

Instead, we invite papers focusing on the active ways in which young
people negotiate transitions and 'careers' in a variety of life domains
-in education, work, migration, family, housing, leisure and sexuality -
while at the same time being sensitive to the structural and cultural
processes shaping the resources and subject positions available to
different young people in different times and places. In the context of
a wider Europe, it is particularly timely to address questions about the
lives of young Eastern Europeans, not only in new EU member states and
in countries bordering the EU, but also in those Western European states
which are a common destination for migrant workers and students.

Papers might address, but should not be limited to, the following
themes:
In Russia and Eastern Europe:
*	Class, gender, ethnicity, and place in youth transitions to
adulthood
*	Rural-urban and centre-periphery divisions amongst young people
*	Young people and work: informal earning and new forms of
employment
*	Young people's sexualities
*	Household and family formation
*	(Sub)cultural formations, consumption, and leisure
*	Youth-operated NGOs and NGOs working with young people in
Western Europe:
*	The ethnicization/racialization of Eastern Europeans in the UK
*	Household and family formation amongst Eastern European migrants
*	'Lifestyles' of Eastern European migrants
*	Eastern European migrants' labour market participation
*	A 'common' identity amongst Eastern European migrants?

Preference will be given to papers which go beyond descriptions of what
young people 'do', and are able to engage either with contemporary
social theory germane to their topic of study, or with issues relating
to social policy and/or the third sector. Abstracts of 250 words should
be sent to the conference organisers Charlie Walker (University of
Oxford) and Svetlana Stephenson (London Metropolitan University) at
[log in to unmask] by Friday 30 January.