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7 - Channeling Frustration through Exit, Exclusion, and Engagement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 August 2023

Amy S. Patterson
Affiliation:
University of the South, Tennessee
Tracy Kuperus
Affiliation:
Calvin University, Michigan
Megan Hershey
Affiliation:
Whitworth University, Washington
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Summary

A subset of youth respondents in the study express how disappointment, frustration, and anger color everyday citizenship. They report how unmet promises, corruption, repression, and exclusive politics undermine their sense of citizen belonging and amplify tensions with elders. Such frustration may lead youth to contest citizenship in alternative ways, though most do not choose these paths. A small number exit, as indicated in Afrobarometer data and by our respondents. Some actively contest citizenship through the exclusion of others along ethnic or religious lines – patterns manifest among Ghanaian and Ugandan respondents and evident in survey data. Although some could choose to follow leaders who claim to speak for the people, comparisons of youth support for such populism in Tanzania and Uganda, on the one hand, with their support for the Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa, on the other, provide inconclusive evidence that youth embrace illiberal populism. A subset channels anger into local and national mobilization, illustrating youth citizens as agents.

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Chapter
Information
Africa's Urban Youth
Challenging Marginalization, Claiming Citizenship
, pp. 173 - 198
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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