Youth on the Move: Performing Urban Space in the Global South

an interdisciplinary dialogue on Urban Africa and Asia

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A Virtual Lecture Series

from October 2023 - January 2024

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‘Youth on the Move: Performing Urban Space in the Global South’ observes emerging socio-spatial practices of youth in African and Asian contexts, and examines their modes of moving and meaning-making through an embodied politics of performance. While ‘youth’ indexes a range of people across spectrums of class, gender, caste, including from (im)migrants, labour, women, early career researchers or students; practices of movement are oriented towards livelihoods, home making, political action or trans-local migration or even artistic expression. How, why, and what are the multiple meanings of youth performing in Southern urban space? How do these different or shared practices of (im)mobility on the move inter-relate with or cross-refer each other? The project gathers urban scholars, architects, artists, curators and local youth groups from Asia and Africa for a collective contemplation through in-depth dialogues on unpeeling the multi-layered, mobile ‘Southern urbanity’.

The two-part virtual lecture series brings a range of urban and cultural practitioners to discuss and lay the theoretical base for the project. These are:

LECTURE SERIES I

The Time and Space of Youth: Situating Youth in Southern Cities 

This series examines the multi-layered conceptions of youth in a Southern context, and argues for alternative frameworks of understanding youth beyond terms like ‘boredom’ and ‘precarity’. We invite scholars of urban studies, anthropology, sociology and culture studies to share their research and reflect on how these approaches enrich the understanding of youth living in the South. 

LECTURE SERIES II

Life on the Move: (Im)mobility and Daily Practices of the Youth 

This series approaches the translocal movements of youth from the perspective of everyday life. We invite scholars whose research projects examine the life of ordinary people, for instance, street vendors, matatu (mini-bus) drivers, women, and translocal migrant workers to map the different trajectories of moving within and between the Southern cities. 

Register with the Asia-Africa network mailing list for regular updates on the upcoming lectures. All the sessions are free and open to the public.