[URBANTH-L]CFP: Youth and Social Change Across Borders (Oxford)

[Angela Jancius]

Youth and social change across borders: emerging identities and divisions in 
Eastern and Western Europe

27th - 28th March 2009

St. Antony's College, University of Oxford

Youth studies has traditionally provided a rich, interdisciplinary forum for the 
exploration of a range of social identities and divisions rooted in class, gender, 
ethnicity and place. It has also been the site on which contemporary social 
theory - pointing in recent years to late-modern processes of globalisation, 
individualisation and risk - have received some of their most illustrative 
applications, as well as their most incisive critiques. This conference asks 
what the study of young people in and from post-Socialist Eastern Europe can 
tell us about the emerging dimensions of social inequality and social change 
both in Eastern and Western European societies. Building on youth studies' 
long standing critique of popular discourses constructing youth 'as/in trouble', 
the conference wishes to move debate decisively away from the common 
perception of young people in post-Socialist countries as a 'lost generation'. 
Instead, we invite papers focusing on the active ways in which young people 
negotiate transitions and 'careers' in a variety of life domains -in education, 
work, migration, family, housing, leisure and sexuality - while at the same time 
being sensitive to the structural and cultural processes shaping the resources 
and subject positions available to different young people in different times and 
places. In the context of a wider Europe, it is particularly timely to address 
questions about the lives of young Eastern Europeans, not only in new EU 
member states and in countries bordering the EU, but also in those Western 
European states which are a common destination for migrant workers and 
students.
Papers might address, but should not be limited to, the following themes:
In Russia and Eastern Europe:
. Class, gender, ethnicity, and place in youth transitions to adulthood
. Rural-urban and centre-periphery divisions amongst young people
. Young people and work: informal earning and new forms of 
employment
. Young people's sexualities
. Household and family formation
. (Sub)cultural formations, consumption, and leisure
. Youth-operated NGOs and NGOs working with young people
In Western Europe:
. The ethnicization/racialization of Eastern Europeans in the UK
. Household and family formation amongst Eastern European migrants
. 'Lifestyles' of Eastern European migrants
. Eastern European migrants' labour market participation
. A 'common' identity amongst Eastern European migrants?

Preference will be given to papers which go beyond descriptions of what 
young people 'do', and are able to engage either with contemporary social 
theory germane to their topic of study, or with issues relating to social policy 
and/or the third sector. Abstracts of 250 words should be sent to the 
conference organisers Charlie Walker (University of Oxford) and Svetlana 
Stephenson (London Metropolitan University) at 
ceelbasyouthconference at googlemail.com by Friday 30 January.