The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce the fifth session of its Child and Youth Studies Institute and invites interested scholars to send applications for consideration for selection as laureates, resource persons, and director in the session that is scheduled for October 2006. The Institute is an off-shoot of the Council's Child and Youth Studies Programme and is designed to strengthen analytic capacity on all questions affecting children and the youth in Africa and elsewhere in the world. The impetus for the introduction of the Institute was strengthened by the critique emanating from African researchers of the content and context of the developmental crises facing the continent and the link between these problems and what is now generally referred to as the Child and Youth Question. The Institute is, therefore, designed as an annual multidisciplinary forum where participants can reflect together on a specific aspect of the conditions of children and the youth in Africa and, in so doing, contribute to the advancement of the frontiers of knowledge and policy. Each session will be held over a period of four weeks under the leadership of a designated director.

For the 2006 session of the Institute, the theme that has been selected is childhood and youth livelihood on the margins with particular emphasis on street children and the lumpen youth. This is a theme that has been recurrent in the study of processes of social change in Africa; in recent times, it has been kept in view by the contexts of conflict, disease, prolonged economic decline, and demographic change that have been important features of politics, economy and society across the continent. Thus, although much work has been done in the past on the street child and more recently on the lumpen youth, the connections of child and youth marginalisation to political instability, violent conflicts, state retrenchment, policies of marketisation, and diseases such as the HIV/AIDs pandemic have remained generally under-explored both empirically and conceptually. Even more under-explored are the various new and/or reconfigured contextual factors that define the framework for the marginalisation of the younger members of society. These factors are political, economic, social and demographic in nature and they speak to broader processes of transition and change in society that have impacted adversely on children and the youth. Thus, while the dominant, traditional explanations of child and youth disadvantage and disaffection such as the changing structure of the family, the decline of "tradition", the poor appeal of formal education, and shifts in social values may still be generally relevant, new factors connected with accelerated processes of urbanisation that have generally gone hand-in-hand with the expansion of the boundaries of the informal sector, deepening of social inequalities in the context of the collapse of social policy, increased migratory flows within and across national borders, and the massive and accelerated refraction of global processes and trends into local contexts, among others, have emerged into significance to merit closer attention.

In part because of the new contextual factors, the worlds of the street child and the lumpen youth have witnessed important changes, including the evolution of unique linguistic forms, which also deserve to be studied in their own right. These worlds are mostly informal, even though they also bear distinct relations of power and are governed by clear rules, including rules of entry. The street children and lumpen youth are mostly concentrated in urban centres. Anecdotal evidence from different parts of Africa suggests that the female population among them has also grown significantly even though their world is still be ruled predominantly masculinist chauvinisms manifesting themselves in different ways from language to dressing. Furthermore, the street children and lumpen youth maintain complex relations with the formal processes and structures of politics and the economy, relations which also highlight the agency which they are able to exercise in projecting their interests and contributing to the shaping of the broader macro-political, economic and social context within which they operate.

Through the theme of the 2006 session, participants in the Institute are being invited to re-read child and youth marginalisation in contemporary Africa by undertaking a critical assessment of the sources, nature, dimensions and significance of street children and lumpen youth in local, national and even regional and global political, social, economic processes. Participants will be encouraged to review and re-think the relevant literature on the subject; analyse the empirical evidence and insights which is available both from their own field work and other sources; construct conceptual, theoretical, and methodological tools that could help to deepen knowledge on new dimensions of child and youth marginality, as well as advance debate; and consider the challenges for further research which arise from their scholarly interventions. For this purpose, the resources of the CODESRIA documentation centre (CODICE) and the expertise of a team of experienced resource persons will be made available to the participants in the Institute.

Laureats

Candidates wishing to be considered for selection as laureates in the Institute should normally be researchers based in African institutions and who have completed their university education/professional training. Furthermore, they should have a demonstrable interest in the Child and Youth Question. Self-sponsoring non-African candidates will also be considered for a limited number of spaces in the Institute. A total of 15 laureates will be selected from the applications received. All candidates are required to submit an application which should include:
A letter of request for consideration for admission into the Institute, complete with all available contact details (e-mail, telephone, and fax);
A research proposal of not more than ten pages linked clearly to the theme of the Institute and with a well-defined problematic;
A current curriculum vitae;
An official letter of institutional affiliation; and
Two reference letters.

Resource Persons

Four resources persons will be selected to work with the director of the Institute to animate the discussions and debates that would be held. The resource persons are required to deliver lectures which not only help the laureates to stimulate their reflections on the theme of the Institute but also to revise their research proposals. As such, the resource persons must have a strong scholarly track record on the Institute theme. Each resource persons will be given a slot to make up to three presentations to the laureates; resource persons will also be encouraged to offer comments on the proposals of the laureates. Once selected, resource persons will be required to write up the presentations they would be making so that these can be circulated in advance to the laureates. After the Institute, they will be expected to revise their presentations for consideration for publication by the Council in a volume devoted to the theme of the session in which they participated.

Candidates wishing to considered for selection as resource persons are requested to:
Submit a letter of application;
A copy of their curriculum vitae;
An outline of not more than five pages of the issues they would like to tackle within the theme of the Institute and spread over three lectures of two hours each; and
A reading list to accompany the presentation they would be making.

Director

The Director takes on the overall responsibility for managing the scientific sessions of the Institute not only in terms of designing an overall programme of presentations and discussions but also assisting the laureates to get the best out of the programme. The director is also expected to edit the proceedings of the Institute once the reports of the laureates and the revised papers of the resource persons are received. Candidates for this position should be accomplished scholars who will be able both to guide and inspire the laureates. Those wishing to be considered for this role are requested to send:
A letter of application;
A copy of their curriculum vitae;
A detailed course outline on the theme of the Institute and which should also be divided into sub-themes that they would wish to see covered during the Institute; and
A bibliographic list to accompany the proposed course outline.

All applications received for consideration as laureates, resource persons and director will be screened by an independent selection committee made up of eminent scholars with expertise on the theme of the Institute. The deadline for the receipt of applications is: 15 August, 2006. Applications should be sent to:

The Child and Youth Studies Institute,
CODESRIA,
Avenue Cheikh Anta Diop (Angle Canal IV),
BP 3304, CP 18524,
Dakar,
Senegal.
Tel: +221-8259822/23
Fax: +221-8241289
E-Mail: child.institute@codesria.s