Currently viewing the tag: "Youth"

On November 3, 2019, the New York Times Magazine featured a photo-essay, “How Does the Human Soul Survive Atrocity?” written by Jennifer Percy, with haunting photographs of war-affected children by Adam Ferguson.  This feature brought readers face-to-face with some of the Iraqi children who experienced the violence and horror of ISIS captivity and are […]

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I have been studying young men in youth gangs in Latin America and Caribbean, mainly in the poor neighborhoods of Medellín, Colombia, for the better part of a decade. I have sat down and talked to lots of young men in gangs, some whom had left gangs, and even their girlfriends and mothers. I have also spoken to young men who didn’t join gangs that came from the very same neighbourhoods and conditions of poverty. Is it possible to trace their trajectories to male adulthood and the processes of socialisation that led some into the gang whist not others? Yes, I think it is. Is it possible to draw up a neat list of causal factors to explain these processes? Well, that is a little more difficult, but it is something we should debate.

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Rio de Janeiro, along with other Latin American cities, are in the top of global rankings of cities facing high rates of chronic urban violence, of which men are the main perpetrators as the vast majority of homicide victims. Dominant, hyper-masculine or masculinist norms that uphold violence represent a shared characteristic of state-sanctioned and criminal groups in Brazil – including drug trafficking gangs,[i] militia (mostly comprised of off-duty police) and police forces. Understanding that these hyper-masculine norms are constructed during the socialization of boys, and continue to be reinforced as men are exposed to groups that use armed violence can offer insightful strategies to reducing urban violence. This article presents findings from two studies carried out Promundo starting in 1999. Promundo is a Brazilian-based NGO, which now works in more than 20 countries, that carries out applied research, program development and advocacy related to gender equality and violence prevention.

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In my presentation at the Youth, Conflict and Governance in Africa workshop at Yale University on March 1, 2014, I drew from findings and analysis in the third chapter of my forthcoming book, The Outcast Majority: War, Development and Africa’s Youth (University of Georgia Press, 2015). I spoke about urbanization, employment and livelihoods with […]

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Technological changes, especially in the domain of Information and Communication Technology, have colored the recent history of these regions. And although wireless coverage here is mostly still far below the average levels found in Europe, South Africa or Kenya, having even relatively poor coverage is making a huge difference to ordinary people’s connectivity compared with the situation as recently as five years ago. Improvements in this domain are to be expected in the coming decade.

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Talk presented at a workshop ‘Youth, Conflict and Governance in Africa’, Yale University, USA, March 2014

South Africa celebrates its twentieth year of democracy this year. It has been an eventful twenty years, with much debate and contestation around the political values and practices in a new and noisy democracy. The institutions and procedures […]

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