YOUTH IN AFRICA Dominant & Counter Narratives A JOURNAL ON AFRICAN WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES ISSUE 8 | DECEMBER 2017 BUWA! ISSUE 8 | DECEMBER 2017 : A Journal on African Women’s Experiences PIXABAY YOUTH IN AFRICA : Dominant & Counter Narratives 01 EDITORIAL Alice D. Kanengoni CONTENTS 06 THE CHANGING CONCEPT OF YOUTH IN AFRICA: From “children” to harnessing them as a demographic dividend Grace Chirenje 12 YOUTH IS JUST A LIE Alcides André de Amaral 16 YOUNG WOMEN CHALLENGING AND RESISTING dominant cultural narratives Rekopantswe Mate 23 THE TALE OF THE EMPTY SEAT: Young women and decision making in Africa Lauren Tracey-Temba 29 YOUNG WOMEN AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION in Angola: The case of the 15 + Two Florita Telo 34 STUDENT ACTIVISM AND YOUTH AGENCY in Botswana Resego Natalie Kgosidintsi 41 YOUTH SELF-ORGANISING AND SELF-MOBILISING around Zambia’s 2016 elections Namakando Simamuna 47 CHALLENGING THE DOMINANT WAYS of creating and consuming knowledge: Addressing the absence of young women in the academia in South Africa Lieketso Mohoto (wa Thaluki) 53 THE VALUE OF INNOVATION HUBS in Africa Rudo Nyangulu 60 AFRICA’S YOUTH AND ABUNDANT ARABLE LAND: a potential winning combination Eugenie WH Maïga 63 REIMAGINING CITIZENSHIP AND IDENTITY: Youth breaking the boundaries in an era of cyber connectivity Sarah Chiumbu 69 THE OPPORTUNITIES THAT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OFFER young women in Africa: My life story Chao Mbogo 75 EXPLORING NEW NARRATIVES, creative spaces and opportunities for youth and young women in Southern Africa Rachel Chavula-Sibande and Martha Chilongoshi 81 YOUTH CULTURE, RELIGION AND SEXUALITY in a context of increasing religious fundamentalisms in Africa Nyaradzo Mashayamombe 88 ACCESS TO AND USE OF PUBLIC SPACES Tsitsi Fungurani osisa | open society initiative for southern africa ALEXANDRE DULAUNOY, FLICKR osisa | open society initiative for southern africa 96 YOUNG, BLACK WOMEN STORYTELLERS and the reshaping of the media space Thandi Bombi, Anthea Garman and Vanessa Malila 101 THE CENTRALITY OF STORYTELLING IN ACTIVISM: Digital storytelling in young African women’s activism Richard Benza 105 ALL YOUR FAVES ARE PROBLEMATIC: A brief history of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, stanning and the trap of #blackgirlmagic Sisonke Msimang 110 SISTER NAMIBIA shaping lives through stories Vida de Voss Links 115 SUBVERSION AND COUNTER NARRATIVES: Theatre as a vehicle of struggle for youth on the continent Percy F Makombe 121 IMAGES OF DISABILITY: How women with disabilities use art to fight negative stereotypes Lovemore Chidemo and Agness Chindimba 125 AFRICAN WOMEN FILMMAKERS’ HUB Damaris Irungu Ochieng’ 129 SISI NI NANI? WHO ARE WE? Reclaiming narratives of young black womxn. Aisha Wanjiru Mugo 132 MHANDARA Nyaradzo Mashayamombe 133 SUBJECTS AS CRITICAL AS BREATHING Tanatsei Gambura 134 AFRICA Nyaradzo Mashayamombe 135 GENERATION YALI: Africa’s growing movement of young change makers Neetha Tangirala 141 RECONCEPTUALISING INEQUALITY: Debunking the myth of young South African women getting pregnant as a means to access social grants Lerato Mohlamenyane 145 DISRUPTION AND NON-CONFORMITY: How youth are carving space for themselves in both private and public spheres Nathan Mukoma 150 MY VOICE, MY SPACE, MY POWER: A reflective journey of the OSISA-led Young Women’s Voices Campaign Grace Chirenje 156 SUMMARY OF THE AFRICAN YOUTH CHARTER The African Union Commission And Youth 158 END CREDITS Publishing information “Young women had to explore ways to negotiate their power and space, but they also had to almost justify why they had to be in the women’s movements and why they needed to create safer spaces to connect and interact. The sisters who had formed the women’s movements struggled with the notions of legacy and transition.” Grace Chirenje osisa | open society initiative for southern africa EDITORIAL Alice D. Kanengoni This Issue of BUWA! interrogates – from a fem‑ stories, and with what effects. Some articles inist perspective – the current narratives on highlight how these are in turn challenged youth on the African continent. Understood and deconstructed and new meanings nego‑ in this context as a series or groups of sto‑ tiated. Other pieces unpack the politics of the ries that are told by individuals and groups various sites where narratives are contested, as part of a causal set of events,1 narratives including through the arts, media, academia, play a significant role in shaping the politics and the resultant contested ideologies on cul‑ of the day in any given society. They give an ture, religion, politics, economics among oth‑ insight into how people make sense of their ers. Some articles also highlight the various lives and if recounted often enough and not movements and groupings that seek creative challenged, they become dominant perspec‑ solutions to Africa’s current and envisaged tives that develop ideologies and influence youth challenges. how people interpret and understand the The place of young people in socio‑ world around them. They often become the political and economic processes has histori‑ basis for constructing social meaning, shaping cally been contested in Africa. Stereotypically, policies, allocating resources, accessing and youth have tended to be portrayed as angry, defending political positions, as well as deter‑ restless, victims, vulnerable, venerable, im‑ mining solutions to given personal, group and pressionable, troubled, and sometimes vio‑ national problems. lent. Institutions such as the media are seen However, where these dominant narra‑ as playing a significant role in the shaping tives are challenged, new ones often emerge, and construction of such narratives. That usually constructed to offer counter views seems to be changing though, of late, with that can result in different courses of action. youth themselves constructing new and mul‑ This implies that through narratives – or col‑ tiple other narratives fanned by many factors. lectives of stories – ideologies are shaped, For instance, social media and other crea‑ challenged, and new meaning is construct‑ tive spaces are perceived by many as having ed around the realities and experiences of opened up opportunities for youth to not particular groupings in given contexts. It only challenge these dominant narratives but also means that when they become part of to also create counter‑narratives that paint a a narrative, stories are political as they can different picture about their lives and their role potentially shift power dynamics, depending in global and local politics. Although this is on how they are told, who tells them, for what not new, what is new – which is the motivation reasons, and – perhaps more importantly – to for this Issue of BUWA! – is how there seems what audiences and with what effect. to be renewed interest globally and locally to In this volume, we explore how power “engage youth” resulting in some observable and the politics of space and voice are – if shifts in policy and practice. at all – differentially shifting the dominant It is essential to highlight upfront that the narratives for young women and men on the concepts of ‘youth’ and ‘narrative’ are not neu‑ continent. The Issue offers insights into who is tral, especially when considered in the context and how they are constructing the dominant of policy, activism and social justice discours‑ es. There is, therefore, need to problematize them. In this Issue, we adopt the African Union 1 Stephen Denning, The Springboard: How definition, which categorizes those between Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations. Boston, London, Butterworth ages 15 and 35 years as a youth. The UN limits Heinemann, October 2000. its meaning to those between 15‑24 years old, BUWA! ISSUE 8 | DECEMBER 2017 : A Journal on African Women’s Experiences 1 EDITORIAL while the African Youth Charter stretches it to those up to 35 years. It is In tracking developments in youth discourses and narratives on the also common that some states on the continent do stretch this to 40, continent and globally, there are discernible patterns of dominant for various reasons and conveniences. and counter‑narratives on their realities and engagement in the socio‑ Similarly, in the body of literature on policy, advocacy, and social economic and political arenas. On the one hand, there is an observable justice, ‘narratives’ tend to be used interchangeably with ‘stories’ and pattern of a global drive towards an agenda for ‘engaging youth’ and this is acceptable to a certain extent. We have adopted the more ex‑ ‘bringing them into the mainstream of these arenas. A narrative of pat‑ pansive definition offered by Brett Davidson (2015) citing Jones and riotism and nationalism apparently informs this opinion. For instance, McBeth (2010); Frank (2010) and Fisher 1984) which goes further to at the global level, the UN in 2013 – for the first time in its history – understand a narrative as: appointed a Special Envoy on Youth (Ahmad Alhendawi). At a continental level, African leaders seem to have also woken up “…a collection or body stories of characters, joined in some to the fact that Africa is home to the majority of young people globally, common problem as fixers (heroes), causes (villains) or the with 200 million people aged between 15 and 24.3 It therefore comes harmed (victims) in a temporal trajectory (plot) leading to- as no surprise that the AU has declared 2017 the ‘AU year of harnessing wards resolution within a particular setting or context (Jones the youth demographic dividend.’ This apparent