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
| Call for papers released | 20 April 2018 |
| Final date for submission of chapter proposals | 15 June 2018 |
| Authors notified of outcome of chapter proposals | 30 June 2018 |
| Meeting of contributors in Toronto (for those at ISA Conference) | 18 July 2018 |
| Outstanding contributions to be invited | 30 July 2018 |
| Final contents and author list to be finalised | 15 August 2018 |
| Authors to be contracted as contributors | 15 September 2018 |
| Meeting of contributors in Cape Town (for those who can attend) | 27-28 November 2018 |
| Authors to submit first draft essays to volume editors for review | 15 January to 15 March 2019 |
| Volume Editors to submit initial comments for revision | 15 February to 15 April 2019 |
| Authors to submit second drafts to editors for external review | 15 May 2019 – 15 June 2019 |
| Volume Editors to submit revision requests to authors | 15 June 2019 |
| Authors to submit final chapters to Volume Editors | 15 September 2019 |
| Submit final manuscript to OUP | 15 October 2019 |
| Publication 6-8 months after that | June 2020 |
Where to submit proposals?
Please send questions and proposals (abstract, brief outline and biosketch) to any of the following:
Sharlene Swartz: sswartz@hsrc.ac.za
Adam Cooper acooper@hsrc.ac.za
Clarence Batan cmbatan@ust.edu.ph
Rosa-Maria Camarena-Cordova rcamaren2001@yahoo.com.mx (Spanish proposals welcome)