Youth and the State in Guinea: Meandering Lives

By combining an ethnographic study of youth with an analysis of the local state in the making, this research monograph introduces the perspective of »meandering lives« to grasp being young and growing up in the Guéckédou borderland, a remote space approximately 700 kilometers southeast of Conakry, Guinea's capital. This history-sensitive perspective represents a fruitful lens to not only depict youth but to also draw a nuanced picture of the functioning of the state in Guinea.

Auteur

Michelle Engeler (PhD) works at the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Basel. Her research interests focus on youth, political change and mobility, particularly in West Africa.

Texte du rabat

This study is a contribution to the growing body of literature discussing youth and the state in Africa and beyond. This research monograph understands »youth« as a process mirrored in the meandering life trajectories of young people who explore various avenues to social status and adulthood. Inevitably, these trajectories are intermingled with the socio-political context of a Guinean state still in the making. Hence, »Youth and the State in Guinea: Meandering Lives« aims at an history-sensitive analysis of youth-state relations representing a fruitful lens not only to depict youthful agency but also to draw a nuanced picture of political changes and continuities in post-colonial Guinea.

Michelle Engeler (PhD) is a social anthropologist at the Centre for African Studies, University of Basel.