The Making of Muslim Youths: Youth Cultures & Politics in Muslim Societies & Communities

Convenor: Asef Bayat
Organizers: IIAS & ISIM
Venue: Leiden University

The central focus of the workshop is to explore how Muslim youths operate under the political, economic, and cultural constraints of their environments. What strategies do they deploy to realize their interests and aspirations? What sorts of politics do they espouse or resort to, if they refuse to take refuge in individualistic strategies, violence, or gang activities? Is Islamism the only major venue for the expression of youth politics in the current juncture? If so, how does this tendency reflect in young people’s desire for the expression of individuality and autonomy?

The workshop attempts firstly to address such questions by drawing on field studies in different national settings ranging from Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, to Iran, Malaysia, Indonesia, and African Muslim societies. Studies focus on youths who operate within the overall Muslim cultural and moral settings. Secondly, we will discuss Muslim youths who attempt to construct both their religious as well as youth identities in the context of non-Islamic environments where Muslims make up a minority, as in Europe, or elsewhere. What kinds of politics do youths engender in the Muslim immigrant communities of Europe? Is a single ‘youth politics’ meaningful with respect to young Muslim minorities when their members come from different ethnic affiliations? How do youth politics play out in the intersection of religion and diverse ethnic loyalties?

The discussions in the workshop are expected to contribute to both the narratives and analyses of youth politics, cultures, and subcultures in Muslim settings, and also to engage with the conceptual debates on youth cultures and politics which have been largely formulated from empirical evidence developed in Western Europe and North America.