‘Campaign’ credentials
President
Ana Miranda
I have been working in youth studies from the moment I graduated. In 1995, I became part of the Youth Research Program at the Latin American School of Social Sciences (FLACSO) in Argentina. Since then, I have intensely developed academic cooperation thanks to the collaboration of Rene Bendit and the German Youth Institute (DJI) during the first years. In addition, I have also been part of several areas departments in academic associations such as LASA, ALAST, among others. In 2006, I collaborated in the organization of the International Network of Youth Researchers, which cooperated with governments thanks to the international conferences organized by the Government of Austria and United Nations. These exchanges with outstanding colleagues and professors of different geographies were essential to the growth of youth research in Latin America, which today is of great importance.
I am a sociology graduate from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina and I hold a PhD in Social Sciences from FLACSO Argentina. At present, I am a senior researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Argentina and a professor at the University of Buenos Aires. My work subjects are related to youth, education, inequality and labor. I have produced research through longitudinal techniques, and founded the Grammar of Youth Longitudinal Research Program, where we follow up youth cohorts initiating in the labor market. I also run a postgraduate program on youth in Latin America. I have written 7 books, among them Entre la educación y el trabajo: la construcción cotidiana de las desigualdades juveniles en América Latina, which was written with the collaboration of Red Latinoamericana de Transición Educación Trabajo (Latin American Network for Transition Education Work), where I take part in the coordination. Additionally, I am currently working on the book Youth, Inequality & Social Change in the Global South (2018, Springer).
Being elected as president of RC34 would be a great honor for me. My proposals for the period 2018-2022 are related to deepen the exchange among researchers, professors and students from different education centers, promote and support publications in specialized journals on youth studies, and also develop transfer actions in the research field, and multilateral agencies with responsibility in the area of youth and social organization, placing special emphasis on those organizations that have young people as protagonists.
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Sharlene Swartz
I have been involved in RC34 since Durban 2006, and owe much of my intellectual growth to the friendships and collaborations I have formed over the years with RC34 members. I am a South African, and hold an executive position at South Africa’s statutory social science research council, the Human Sciences Research Council, and am an adjunct Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Cape Town, and an Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. I have studied both in South Africa (Wits and Zululand) and (Harvard and Cambridge). This has given me a vision to see Southern knowledge circulated and deghetto-ised, and to re-imagine a new future for Southern knowledge in the North.
My areas of focus centres on the just inclusion of youth in a transforming society (in South Africa and in other parts of the Global South where injustice has occurred) that includes interpersonal and communal notions of restitution. Before embarking on an academic career, I was a youthworker for 12 years. I am the author or editor of nine books including Ikasi: the moral ecology of South Africa’s township youth (2009); Teenage Tata: Voices of Young Fathers in South Africa (2009); Youth citizenship and the politics of belonging (2013); Another Country: Everyday Social Restitution (2016); Moral eyes: Cultivating youth engagement with privilege, injustice and restitution (2018) and Studying while black: Race, education and emancipation in South African universities (2018). I am currently leading the development of the Oxford Handbook of Global South Youth Studies (2020 forthcoming).
If elected ISA RC34 President, I hope to build on the work of past Presidents in encouraging meaningful collaboration in the sociology of youth as we seek to talk, write and build friendships as a diverse community of scholars. I would like to use my four years as President to ensure that scholars from the Global South and younger scholars are offered every opportunity to contribute (and publish) so that we may all benefit.
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Co-ordinator IBYR
Maurizio Merico
Vice-Presidents Europe
(2 positions)
Airi-Alina Allaste
It has been great pleasure to be part of the RC34 community and I am grateful for the long-term contribution made by the RC34 leaders and members in all initiatives. Recently the co-operation between ESA and ISA youth research networks has developed, and co-operation with youth policy makers has strengthened. I would certainly think these are the directions that should be continued. I have been a long-term active member of youth research networks both in ESA and ISA, and I am also affiliated with networks that include also youth organisations, youth policy experts and practitioners (e.g. RAY Network, SALTO think-tank). I consider defining young lives as important, since it influences how young people are approached. I also see a necessity not only to focus on academic research but to have an impact on society and integrate youth researchers into decision-making processes alongside policymakers.
Thinking of the future, besides all existing activities, RC34 (possibly with co-operation of ESA youth and generation network) could think of summer schools for PhD students – there are some funds available in both organisations, and there are probably universities who would be interested in investing it. PhD summer schools on youth studies could integrate practitioners and policymakers to facilitate developing capacity for debate and include media sessions preparing younger scholars for public discussions. This kind of environment would ideally improve academic skills, widen networks and encourage youth researchers to become active in society at the early stages of their careers. If the idea would be appreciated, I would be happy to commit to working with it in case I am elected. I already have some positive experiences on that – as the director of the ESA summer school 2017 in Athens, I initiated a media session on ‘public facing scholarship and media literacy,’ which was warmly appreciated by PhD students.
I am a professor of sociology at Tallinn University, Estonia, and an adjunct professor of youth research at Åbo Akademi, Finland. I have been investigating young people’s participation, lifestyles and subcultures, mobility and informal education. The focus of the studies has been on the meanings that young people attribute to their lives.
I have been the country coordinator of several international projects, such as MYPLACE, which involved 15 partner countries and the project leader in Estonian projects, such as Youth Monitoring. I have organised several youth research conferences including the Nordic Youth Research Symposium in Tallinn, Estonia 2013. My recent publications include an edited book (Allaste, A.-A., Tiidenberg, K. 2015. ‘In Search of…’ New Methodological Approaches to Youth Research. Cambridge Scholar Publishing), a contribution to the handbook (Allaste, A.-A. & Cairns, D. 2017. Understanding online activism in transition society. Handbook of Youth and Young Adulthood. Routledge), and being one author of a joint monography (Cairns, D.; Krzaklewska, E.; Cuzzocrea, V; Allaste, A.-A; 2018 Mobility, Education and Employability in the European Union. Inside Erasmus. Palgrave Macmillan).
For more information about my research and experiences, please see: https://www.etis.ee/CV/Airi-Alina_Allaste/eng?lang=ENG
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Sarah Pickard
Dear ISA RC34 members, Dear colleagues and friends,
The Sociology of Youth research committee is a marvellous opportunity for researchers to exchange ideas, develop research projects and make friends within a kindly and constructive environment.
The coming together of scholars and practitioners at different career stages from across the globe provides rich possibilities, which I have benefited from since becoming a member in 2012. After presenting papers at the ISA Forum in Buenos Aires (2012), I went on to co-organise a session and speak at the World Congress in Yokohama (2014) and will do the same in Toronto (2018). Thanks to RC34, I have co-edited books with fellow members and invited others to speak at the Université Sorbonne nouvelle. In turn, I have been invited by fellow RC34 members to speak and participate in projects linked to my research area: young people and political participation as a reaction to youth policy.
Were I to be one of the two RC34 regional Vice Presidents for Europe, as part of the RC34 team of the Executive Board running activities and making networks, I would participate in building on the rich history of RC34 and help to take it forward by attracting new members and enabling new and established members to benefit from everything it has to offer as a global interdisciplinary network. Based in Paris a city with a substantial place in the history of youth research, I live and work at a crossroads of Europe and have had the pleasure of working with colleagues from all over Europe.
Born in London, I did my first degree at Lancaster University (1990) before moving to Paris to study for my PhD on youth culture and political responses in terms of youth policy at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (2000) where I went on to become a Senior Lecturer and Researcher.
For more information please go to: http://www.univ-paris3.fr/pickard-sarah-127807.kjsp
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Ilaria Pitti
I participated to my first ISA Conference in Yokohama in 2014. It was just a month after completing my PhD and, since then, I have found in RC34 countless resources for my personal and academic growth: my competencies, network, and character have deeply benefited from the professional collaborations and friendships developed with other members.
I received my PhD from the University of Bologna (Italy) and I am currently Marie Skłodowska -Curie post-doc fellow at Örebro University (Sweden). My study and research activities focus on the field of youth studies (with specific attention to the political and civic participation of young people, to their paths of transitions to work, and to their relationships with the adult generation) and on the analysis of social movements (youth activism and organised fan’s communities/football subcultures). I have been involved in several research projects at national and international level (including Horizon 2020 projects) and I have published books, articles, and chapters in English, Italian, and French.
Before being a scholar in the field of youth studies, I am a (relatively) young European. I am a member of that “Erasmus generation” which has grown up in the Europe without borders and who is now living in the fortified EU. I am part of that “precarious generation” of young people who, especially in Southern Europe, are experiencing a worsening of their life’s expectations, but who are also carving their own space in the unwelcoming scenario of the crisis, the austerity and neo-liberalism. I am a member of that allegedly disengaged cohort that is reshaping politics.
I don’t aim at speaking for my whole generation, but I would like to give more voice to this generation within our RC. If elected ISA RC34 Vice President Europe, in the attempt to reinforce and give new strength to RC34’s traditional mission of shedding light on the conditions of young people in contemporary society, I would like mainly work to facilitate the participation of other young scholars in the life of the RC, creating concrete opportunities of connections between younger European and non-European researchers and collaborations between younger and experienced researchers within the RC.
Vice President Sub-Saharan Africa
Kiran Odhav
Vice President MENA (Middle East and North Africa
Ali Akbar Taj Mazinani
I am currently the Dean of Social Science Faculty at Allameh Tabataba’i University (the largest public university specialized in humanities and social sciences in Iran). Prior to completing my PhD in Social Policy (Youth Studies) in the UK (holding an ORS Award) I was attached to the National Youth Organization of Iran as Director General of Youth Research Office and Head of International Affairs Department. I have undertaken several research projects and have published a number of works on youth and social policy with various national and international institutions including the National Youth Organization, UNICEF Representative in Iran, Council of Europe’s Youth Directorate, Social Security Research Institute, and Tehran Municipality. I have been involved in organizing several scientific events including the recent international conference on ‘Social Policy in the Islamic World’ (http://spiw.atu.ac.ir) in May 2018 which attracted widespread international attention and which included a session on Children and Youth Policy. I have actively attended several ISA events in recent years and have organized a session on “Muslim Youth, Contemporary Challenges and Future Prospects” at the 3rd ISA Forum of Sociology (Vienna, Austria). I am interested in social policy including youth policy in Muslim societies which are mainly located in MENA region and hope to be able to use the RC34 platform to establish a more active network of youth researchers in the region.
For more information please go to: http://ssd.atu.ac.ir/uploads/tajmazinani-cv_2017.pdf
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Abeer Musleh
Vice Presidents Asia
(2 positions)
Vinod Chandra
Steven Ngai
Vice President Oceania
Dan Woodman
Vice President North America
Sampson Blair
Vice President Latin America
Ada Cora Freytes Frey