ABSTRACT

This paper introduces the Special Collection ‘Youth, the Kenyan state and a politics of contestation'. It focuses on youth and the heterogenous ways this social category responds to inordinate state action. Specifically, we foreground the various roles the Kenyan state has played in the construction and politicization of Kenyan youth across time and space. The introduction frames the papers in the Special Collection within a three-pronged argument: First, while we present youth as heterogeneous social category, we argue that their similar experiences of state surveillance and violence warrant analyzing them through a comparative lens. Secondly, we reject ahistorical renderings of youth politics often presented in youth bulge studies, arguing that such analyses have served to disregard and delegitimize the political grievances of Kenyan youth and flatten the diversity of their political activities. Finally we call for an approach to the study of youth politics, which seeks to expand ‘the parameters of the political’, taking oft-neglected informal spaces of youth political activity as important discursive and material sites of investigation. Taking these spaces seriously as objects of analysis, the papers provide a nuanced assessment of youth as political actors, which problematize reductive dichotomous narratives of youth politics that pit resistance against co-optation.

摘要

本文介绍了“青年，肯尼亚国家和竞争政治”特别收藏。它侧重于青年以及该社会类别对过分的国家行为做出反应的不同方式。具体来说，我们展望了肯尼亚国家在跨越时空的肯尼亚青年的建设和政治化中所扮演的各种角色。引言将“特别收藏”中的论文分为三个方面：首先，虽然我们将青年归为异类社会类别，但我们认为，他们在国家监视和暴力方面的相似经历值得通过比较的视角来加以分析。其次，我们拒绝青年膨胀研究中经常出现的青年政治的历史性渲染，他们认为，这种分析无视和贬低了肯尼亚青年的政治不满，并使他们的政治活动多样化。最后，我们呼吁采取一种研究青年政治的方法，以扩大“政治的参数”，将经常被忽视的青年政治活动的非正式空间作为重要的话语和实质性调查场所。这些论文认真地将这些空间作为分析的对象，对青年作为政治角色进行了细致的评估，这使青年政治的还原性二分式叙述问题化，从而使人们对选民产生抵制。将经常被忽略的非正式青年政治活动空间作为重要的辩论和实质性调查场所。这些论文认真地将这些空间作为分析的对象，对青年作为政治角色进行了细致的评估，这使青年政治的还原性二分式叙述问题化，从而使人们对选民产生抵制。将经常被忽略的非正式青年政治活动空间作为重要的辩论和实质性调查场所。这些论文认真地将这些空间作为分析的对象，对青年作为政治角色进行了细致的评估，这使青年政治的还原性二分式叙述问题化，从而使人们对选民产生抵制。