Young People in the Global South

Led by Professor Pam Nilan, research in this theme examines the diverse conditions of life for young people living in places outside the Northern Metropole. With specific emphasis on youth in the Asia Pacific region, it examines the ongoing salience of family, religion and tradition in how young people shape their future expectations of education, work, marriage and parenthood. A further focus is on the relationship between cultural practices and youth identities, offline and online, with due attention to gender and sexuality. In theoretical terms, an important goal is to move beyond established youth transition approaches, to generate new frames of interpretation that better suit research on non-western youth experiences of moving into adulthood.

Theme Members:

Prof Pam Nilan

University of Newcastle, Australia

Pam Nilan is Professor of Sociology in the School of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Newcastle, and Adjunct Fellow in Asian Studies at the University of Western Australia (2013-2016). She is currently the Treasurer of the Asia-Pacific Sociological Association. Professor Nilan is an experienced youth researcher, who has worked in Australia, Vietnam, Fiji and Indonesia. In the youth research field she focuses on school-to-work transitions, gender, class and popular culture. She has published numerous articles in refereed journals and contributed many book chapters to edited collections. She has been a co-author on four books. Professor Nilan is currently a Chief Investigator on an ARC-funded Discovery Grant: Far Right in Australia: Intellectuals, Masculinity and Citizenship, contributing a focus on gender, class and youth recruitment by the Far Right.

Prof Carles Feixa

University of Barcelona

Carles Feixa (1962) is professor of social anthropology at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Catalonia, Spain). He has investigated youth cultures and has conducted fieldwork in Spain and Latin America. He is the author of several books like De jovenes, bandas y tribus (Barcelona, 1998; 5th edition 2012), Global Youth? (with P. Nilan, Routledge, London & New York, 2006) and Youth, Space and Time (with C. Leccardi and P. Nilan, Brill, Leiden & Boston, 2016). He has been advisor for youth policies of the United Nations and Vice President of the International Sociological Association Research Comitee “Sociology of Youth”. In 2017 he obtained two of the highest recognitions to his research work: the ICREA Academia Award of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Advanced Grant of the European Research Council (www.upf.edu/web/transgang).

Dr Oki Rahadianto Sutopo

University of Gadjah Mada, Indonesia

Oki Rahadianto Sutopo is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology and the Executive Director of the Youth Studies Centre (YouSure) in the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia. His recent work focuses on youth studies, sociology of knowledge, social change and sociology of culture. He has published articles in the Journal of Youth Studies, Crime Media Culture, Sociological Research Online and Asian Music. He is the editor-in-chief of Jurnal Studi Pemuda (Youth Studies Journal in Indonesia).

Dr Bronwyn Wood

Victoria University Wellington

Bronwyn Wood is a Senior Lecturer in Education at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her research interests centre on issues relating to youth participation, citizenship and education. She has a particular interest in youth politics and citizenship participation and the ways that young people understand and experience both formal and informal modes of citizenship participation and how education mediates this. Her recent research focuses on experiences of belonging and citizenship for young people growing up in some of New Zealand's most culturally diverse communities. She is an Editor of the journal Theory, Research and Social Education and the Journal of Applied Youth Studies has published in many journals including Emotion, Space and Society, Political Geography, Teaching and Teacher Education and the Journal of Youth Studies.