Young People in the Global South

Kate Pincock is a Researcher on the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) programme at ODI and a Research Associate at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. Her research interests include critical theories of agency; age, gender and sexualities; participatory methodologies; and postcolonial work on displacement, borders and mobility. She is the author of The Global Governed (2020) and co-editor of Adolescents in Humanitarian Crisis: Gender, Displacement and Social Inequalities (2021). Nicola Jones is a Principal Research Fellow at ODI and Director of GAGE, the largest longitudinal research study in the Global South (2016–2016), following 20,000 adolescent girls and boys across the second decade of life. Her research focuses on gender, adolescence and childhood, social protection and gender norm change in developmental and conflict-affected contexts in sub-Saharan Africa, East and South Asia, and the Middle East. Nicola has published widely including two recent co-edited volumes with Routledge: Adolescents in Humanitarian Crisis: Gender, Displacement and Social Inequalities (2021) and Adolescent Girls and Empowerment: Towards Gender Justice (2018). Lorraine van Blerk, FAcSS, is a Professor of Human Geography at the University of Dundee, UK, and an Honorary Professor at the Children’s Institute, University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her research focuses on childhood and youth, with a particular focus on participatory and co-produced research. Her research has examined issues of homelessness, refugee status and other aspects of marginalisation and exclusion for young people in urban and rural settings, most notably across Africa. She is co-editor/author of four books and has written in excess of 100 academic and policy-related publications. Lorraine co-led the Growing Up On The Streets longitudinal and qualitative research programme and leads subsequent affiliated projects. Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda is the Founder and Chief Executive of the Rozaria Memorial Trust and former World YWCA General Secretary. She is a trained human rights lawyer with extensive experience in conflict resolution and mediation. She is also the current chair of CIVICUS and serves on the Advisory Committee for Girls Not Brides. She was appointed a member of the High Level Group on HIV Prevention and Sexual Health for Young People in Eastern and Southern Africa by the United Nations, following her service as a member of the UN Commission on Information and Accountability on Women and Children’s Health. In May 2014 she was named Goodwill Ambassador of the African Union Campaign to End Child Marriage.

SECTION I Research methods to explore young people’s voice, agency and civic engagement; Introduction: Adolescent and young people’s voice, agency and citizenship in the Global South; Section overview: Research methods to explore young people’s voice, agency and civic engagement; Measuring adolescent voice and agency: An overview of quantitative and mixed-methods approaches; Empowerment in the age of Covid-19: A mixed-methods study of voice and decision-making on four continents; Giving voice to children and adolescents in Chile: Lessons from the participatory research Mosaic approach; Youth contribution: Changing perceptions, changing roles exploring self, peer and public perceptions and changing roles and responsibilities of street-connected peer researchers and advocates in Kolkata during the Covid-19 pandemic; Youth contribution: Our child-led research makes child activists’ voices stronger in Brazil; Youth contribution: How we are working to reduce teenage pregnancy in our community in Sierra Leone; SECTION II Listening to young people: Negotiating gendered perspectives on voice and agency; Youth contribution: ‘When a girl says something, I learn from her’; Section overview: Listening to young people: Negotiating gendered perspectives on voice and agency; Exercising agency on the periphery: Brazilian children and young people’s understanding of agency and choice within contexts of inequality; ‘Children have the right to be controlled by their parents’: Children’s voice in rural Sierra Leone; Exploring the lived realities of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) youth in Bangladesh; Youth contribution: When children and young people participate, it is possible to make a change; Youth contribution: Reflections of a young feminist navigating the promise of sustainable development by world leaders; Youth contribution: Pressure around sex in exchange for necessities is a setback in the fight against HIV among adolescent girls living in fishing communities in Kenya’s Lake Victoria region; SECTION III Understanding young people’s citizenship: Marginalisation, agency and the political Imagination; Youth contribution: ‘Although the camp has changed as compared to the old times, I don’t think it has changed enough’; Section overview: Understanding young people’s citizenship: marginalisation, agency and the political imagination; Street youth as human billboards – a paradox of performed street citizenship: Novel political participation by street youth in Ghana; Informality, gender, and alternative citizenship: The lives and livelihoods of rural migrant youth in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Youth movements and political protest: Opportunities and limitations of Ethiopia’s Qeerroo movement in affecting transformative change; Youth contribution: Negotiating everyday life in a Delhi slum as a Muslim girl; SECTION IV Young people’s voice, agency and participation ‘beyond borders’; Youth contribution: My revolution footprint in Zambia; Section overview: Young people’s voice, agency and participation ‘beyond borders’; Patterning, enablers and barriers to adolescents’ participation in protracted crises: A case study of adolescents’ mobility and safe access to public spaces in the Gaza Strip; Adolescents mobilising in real life and online: The Bangladesh context; Youth contribution: Youth climate leaders: What are the major barriers facing young people in climate action and how can these be overcome?; Youth contribution: ‘Being part of the military wing gives you authority here in the camp’; SECTION V Policies and programming for voice, agency and civic participation; Youth contribution: ‘My mother does not allow me to go out of this camp’: Reflections on experiences as an internally displaced adolescent girl in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia; Section overview: Policies and programming for voice, agency and civic participation; Supporting adolescent voice, agency and civic participation in the context of forced displacement: The role of the Makani/‘My Space’ programme one-stop centres in Jordan; Negotiating meaningful dialogue: Scaffolding safe spaces for street-connected young people’s participation in Kenya; Youth contribution: Youth citizenship and advocacy: Perspectives and challenges facing Peruvian youth leaders; Youth contribution: ‘We give our views but our suggestions are not implemented’: Experiences of school parliaments in Batu, Ethiopia; Youth contribution: The Khuluma Mentor programme: Young people’s experiences of running a digital peer-led psychosocial support intervention in South Africa; Final reflections and next steps for policy, programming and research