This book deals with problems facing children and youth in African cities today. African populations have high growth rates and, consequently, relatively high proportions of young people. Population growth in rural areas has stretched resources leading to urban migration and a rapid growth of cities. Economies have not grown apace with the population; and in some countries, economies have even shrunk. The result is a severe lack of resources in cities to meet the needs of the growing populations, shown in high unemployment, inadequate housing, poor services, and often extreme poverty. All the essays in this book draw attention to such urban environments, in which children and youth have to live and survive.
The title of this book speaks of negotiating livelihoods. The concept of ‘livelihood’ has been adopted to incorporate the social and physical environment together with people’s responses to it. It considers not only material, but also human and social resources, including local knowledge and understanding. It, thus, considers the material means for living in a broader context of social and cultural interpretation. It, therefore, does not deal only with material and economic existence, but also with leisure activities, entertainments and other social forms of life developed by young people in response to the dictates of the environment.
The book contains country-specific case studies of the problems faced by youths in many African cities, how they develop means to solve them, and the various creative ways through which they improve their status, both economically and socially, in the different urban spaces. It recognizes the potentials of young people in taking control of their lives within the constraints imposed upon them by the society. This book is a valuable contribution to the field of child and youth development, and a useful tool for parents, teachers, academics, researchers as well as government and non-government development agencies.
Michael Bourdillon is a Professor of the Department of Sociology, University of Zimbabwe. He is directly involved in organisations dedicated to helping street children, and has written widely on sociology topics such as working children and rural livelihoods in Zimbabwe. Michael Bourdillon is a Professor of the Department of Sociology, University of Zimbabwe. He is directly involved in organisations dedicated to helping street children, and has written widely on sociology topics such as working children and rural livelihoods in Zimbabwe.
Ali Sangare, Sociologue, Chargé de recherche à l’Institut des Sciences des Sociétés, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique et Technologique, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
ISBN: 978 286978 504 5
CODESRIA 2012
This book focuses on African childhood and youth within the context of development and socialization where children are expected to be moulded in the image of adults. in many African societies children are generally held as passive bearers of the demands of adults, regardless of the fact that they are often exposed to a multitude of challenges that originate from the capriciousness of those adults. However, buoyed by international conventions
and national legislations that offer them greater protection, and the ubiquitous internet that exposes them to childhood and youth experiences elsewhere, many of them are increasingly becoming assertive in homes, schools, and communities as well as re-invigorating their survival and self-preservation instincts. it is in this regard that this book, through the various chapters, engages with their competencies, skills and creativity to respond to experiential challenges as independent migrants or ones under coercion working in city streets and markets or cocoa farms or juggling work and schooling in pursuit of some education. Confronted with their parents’ and siblings’ health predicaments and the inadequacies of state and familial care, or urgent negotiation of their sexualities, they demonstrate incredible resilience. similarly, their perceptiveness is demonstrated in a unique appreciation of politics and its actors and a capacity to assume responsibilities beyond their chronological age. Thus while highlighting some of the challenges confronting African children, the book provides gripping evidence of how they resiliently negotiate those challenges.
Yaw ofosu-Kusi is Associate Professor of social studies and dean of the Faculty of social sciences of the University of education, Winneba, Ghana. He obtained his doctorate degree in Applied social studies from the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. His research interest is primarily in urban childhood and the informal economy, with specific attention given to child migration, street life and labour, and children’s agency. One of his publications is ‘Dreams, expectations and experiential realities of street children in Accra, Ghana’, in Narrating (Hi)Stories in West Africa (Berlin: Lit Verlag 2015).
ISBN: 978-2-86978-718-6
CODESRIA 2017