Abstract
This panel focuses on the tension between being youth and becoming adult that negates the temporality of waiting and the status of waithood in African postmodern societies. In “waithood” there is a dramatic twist of time-consciousness aligning expectations and possibilities in a manner that projects young people in Africa as static social agents in a hurry. As societal structures often fail to provide adequate opportunities for education, employment, and social integration, young people are left navigating a liminal space that disrupts traditional life trajectories and are entangled in the constellation and tension of temporalities. This temporal entanglement compels them to deploy negative agencies as coping mechanisms and strategies for survival, thus expressing their potential to rewrite their own history. Our discussion will focus on the manifestations of these negative agencies, including participation in informal economies, engagement in criminal activities, and reliance on social media and digital platforms for disruptive behaviours. The panel will feature presentations that discuss how these actions are not merely deviant but are responses to systemic failures and societal pressures. By examining the underlying causes and implications from diverse, gendered and multidisciplinary perspectives, this panel aims to highlight how temporality is multiply expressed in the way African youths relate with space and time.
Discussants
Isaiah Oluwayomi Olayode
University of Lagos (Nigeria)
Before Marital Vows: Navigating Societal Expectations among Southwestern Nigerian Youths in the Era of Waithood
Societies across the world setup benchmarks in form of passage rites, expected to be fulfilled by individuals to be recognized as members of a particular society. Yorùbá society in southwestern Nigeria, not in exception with various expectations that qualify every member of the society to move from one stage to another. The notable among these passage rites is societal expectations covertly designed for the youths, especially the males to scale through to qualify for marriage, and how the strive to meet these expectations has deprived average youths in southwestern Nigeria the right to marriage, leaving their female counterparts marriable in search of husbands. In view of this, this study examines how youths navigate societal expectations in Southwestern Nigeria in the Era of Waithoods. This study has three fundamental objectives. First, it examines the passage rites for Yorùbá Youths to qualify for marriage in Southwestern Nigeria. Second, to analyze how societal expectations impact Yorùbá men and women differently, especially in terms of readiness, social status and marriageability. Finally, it explores the coping mechanisms adopted by Yorùbá youths in navigating societal expectations for marriage in the face of economic hardship and social realities. To achieve these objectives, this study adopts a qualitative method of data collection involving interviews among selected youths between the ages of 18 and 40 years in major cities across southwestern Nigeria to obtain information about their lived experiences relating to contemporary societal expectations before marriage. The study concludes that the strive to meet societal expectations before marriage vows has contributed to unnecessary waithood among youths in Southwestern Nigeria, leaving marriable ladies in search of husbands, and it’s Imperative to rethink this cultural norm in line with global changes in gender narratives.
Keywords: Nigeria, Marital Vows, Societal Expectations, Southwestern Youths, Waithood
Ademola Kazeem Fayemi
Australian Catholic University, Sydney (Australia)
Dysfunctional Agency and Health Inequity among Nigerian Youths: Fixing the Tension of Waithood
The youth demography constitutes a significant portion of Nigeria's estimated growing population of 220 million. While the United Nations Population Fund Country Programme approximately estimated 63% of Nigeria's population is under 25 years old in 2023, an increasing number of such populations are victims of drug abuse and dysfunctional agencies. According to the 2021 National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) report, 40% of Nigerian youths aged 18 to 35 are approximately profoundly involved in drug abuse. There is a conceptual and scientific link between the use of substance abuse and narcotics and the disruption of agency, making it dysfunctional. Given these alarming statistics, this paper reflects on the problem of dysfunctional agency and health inequity among Nigerian youths. In contributing to the discourse on promoting health equity and positive agencies amongst African youths, this paper argues that understanding the context, effects, and temporal entanglements in waithood amongst youth is strategic to addressing factors exacerbating the health inequity gap in Nigeria. Drawing on Jennifer Ruger's health capability paradigm, this paper argues that Nigeria's capacity for meaningfully transitioning her youths to responsible older adults is fractured. The temporality of waiting into responsible older adults amongst some Nigerian youth populations tends to obey the logic of contraposition. If the social structure and associated system of enabling health capability and well-being of the youth are not facilitated, then waiting to see youth grow into responsible adults contributing to national development is not unfractured and possible. When a moral agency is dysfunctional, the temporality of waithood and becoming is disrupted, resulting in 'waitless' and 'unbecoming'. The question is, can the tension of waithood be fixed? Who are the actors, and what responsibilities and duties do they have? This paper provides some suggestions as starting points.
Keywords: Dysfunctional Agency, Health Inequity, Youth, Waithood, Waitless
Hellen Kilelo
Moi University (Kenya)
Remostrating in the Waithood? The Kenyan Gen Z in search of their “space”
In June 2024, Kenyan youth led by the Generation Z category used the social media to mobilize other young people country wide with the following hashtags: #RejectFinanceBill, #Occupystatehouse, #Rutomustgo and #OccupyParliament amongst others. The protests were sparked by the Finance bill 2024 that had been passed in Parliament, the high cost of living, unemployment, corruption, opulence being displayed by those in power amongst other factors. This led to the president rescinding on this bill and changing his cabinet. Protests were carried out throughout the country. This caused many to wonder whether the country was experiencing a Gen Z Spring. The Gen Z consist of a critical group in waithood who are not only tech-savvy but who are also using technology to protest and actively participate in the political discourse. The irony is that although over 70 percent of the Kenyan population consists of young people in waithood, the voter turnout during the 2022 elections was the lowest in the last 15 years. This study seeks to answer the following questions: What are the drivers behind the Gen Z remonstrations in their waithood in Kenya? What are the strategies and tools used by the Gen Z for mobilization? What challenges have they been facing? The study will be based on the youth agency theory. This research will adopt a Qualitative Approach. Youths aged between 18 and 27 in different Counties in Kenya will be interviewed.
Keywords: Waithood, Gen Z, remonstration, mobilization, participation
Peter Oni
University of Lagos (Nigeria)
Reclaiming Time through Negative Agencies: Youth and the Subversion of Temporalities
Youth in African postmodern societies are affected mainly by unequal opportunities, frustration, social deprivation, inadequate socialization, meager community resources and facilities, injustice, and uncertainty. In dramatic turn of time-consciousness, youths align expectations and possibilities with redefining social temporality paradigms. As youth are in a hurry, the tension between being young and becoming adults becomes convoluted in the quest for existence, flourishing, or both. Temporality, therefore, assumes new meaning and understanding where the three moments of time fuse in a dialectical process of entanglement of grasp, retention, and pretension. Unfortunately, this postmodern trend of youth-oriented fusing of time births complex and paradoxical experiences evident in social woes and vices, including cults, gangs, crimes, fraud, and the associated get-rich-quick syndrome in most urban spaces in Africa and elsewhere. Clearly stated, young Africans are entangled in subversive images and contradictions of progress revealing existential tensions. As such, youth responses to spatio-temporal and territorial stigma depict their potential to redesign their existence. Against this background, this paper examines the trends and challenges of waithood among youth and temporality(ies) in post-modern African societies as they contour their identity(ies).
Keywords: Africa, Negative Agencies, Subversion of Temporalities, Time-Consciousness, Youth