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This book contains a range of original studies on one of the major challenges in Africa today: the controversial role of youth in politics, conflict and rebellious movements. The issue is not only the drafting of child soldiers into insurgent armies or predatory militias, as in Somalia, Sierra Leone or Congo, but, more generally, that of the problematic insertion of large numbers of young people in the socio-economic and political order of post-colonial Africa. Even educated youths are being confronted with a lack of opportunities, blocked social mobility, and despair about the future. African youth, while forming a numerical majority, largely feel excluded from power, are socio-economically marginalized, thwarted in their ambitions, and have little access to representative positions or political power.
About the author
Jon Abbink is a Social Anthropologist. His research interests are ethnicity, Ethiopian ethnology, the comparative study of violence and culture, and developments in the political cultures of the Horn of Africa. His current projects include a study of ethnic relations, ethno-history and social organization in societies in Southern Ethiopia.
Ineke van Kessel is a historian whose work mostly focuses on contemporary South Africa. She is currently researching the history of Dutch-Ghanaian relations and of the African soldiers enlisted in the Netherlands East Indies army in the nineteenth century.
