Youth movements and transformations of the political: Bangladesh and Senegal in transregional comparison

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Eva Gerharz; Dr. Sandrine Gukelberger; Professor Dr. Christian Meyer
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research ; Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 395804440

Since the mid-2000s, an international boom of protest can observed that has made use of new forms of the political. In the societies of the Global South, youth movements are the most important protagonists of these protests, which are often related to recent economic and political developments, yet sometimes do not specifically formulate their demands, but rather highlight the plurality of civil society actors. As could be seen in the Arab Uprisings, the consequences for the established social orders and political cultures of the respective countries can hardly be captured in a single formula. Existing research on the transformation of political culture resulting from youth movement protests is still scarce. The proposed project attempts at rectifying this deficiency by addressing the question of how youth movements in two Muslim countries (Bangladesh and Senegal) restructure the existing political cultures and what effects they have on their transformation. The proposed project intends to clarify empirically how youth movements in the two countries use references to Islam and secularism as well as traditionality and modernity, and to what extent they formulate clear for and against positions. The redefinition of the political in the context of the protest is connected to the use of new media that will equally be examined. Theoretically, the project draws on sociological research on social movements as well as on cultural, media, and developmental sociology. The comparison of two youth movements in two different Muslim societies will allow the identification of general structures of political transformation in the South, which also leads to a better understanding of the motives for migration of the youth from this region.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants