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Transnational Ethnography on Youth Political Engagement in North Africa: Challenges and Benefits

This project explores youth political engagement in Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, and Algeria using transnational ethnography. With a focus on multiple locations, themes, and outcomes, it examines the challenges and benefits of such an approach. The study delves into youth employment, education, political involvement, cultures, values, and leisure activities. By involving local partners and European researchers, the project aims to produce policy reports and documentary films. It discusses the complexities of team ethnography, including reflexive practices, cooperation, and complementarity, while emphasizing the importance of individual voices. The presentation also touches upon the uncertainties and security considerations involved in field research. Overall, the project seeks to contribute valuable insights into Arab-Mediterranean youth political engagement and the dynamics of transnational ethnographic research.

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Transnational Ethnography on Youth Political Engagement in North Africa: Challenges and Benefits

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  1. Transnational ethnography on youth political engagement in Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon and Algeria – and beyond Sofia Laine – Finnish Youth Research Network Political sociology and transnational ethnographySosiologipäivät 5.-6.3.2015

  2. Structure of Presentation • Short presentation of enormous project- partners- locations- themes- expected outcomes 2. Transnational multi-sited ethnography - teams & locations & themes - expected outcomes a) nationally, b) transnationally 3. Challenges and benefits of transnational multi-sited ethnography + discussion

  3. 15 partners • 5 research countries • 3,1 million € budget • 1st Jan 2014 – 31st Dec 2016

  4. Transnational multi-sited ethnography • Three locations in each of the five countries: rural, urban and semi urban • National Ethnographic Research Plans (one/each country): describing precise locations and sub-cultures/themes of the fieldwork 3. Different deliverables from the field (see chart): synthesis in English (i.e. language of the project) Documentary film maker and 3 partner researchers from Europe visiting the locations, video recording interviews + documentary workshop w/ youth

  5. Clusters Cluster 1: Youth Employment and Economics Cluster 2: Youth Education and Social Institutions Cluster 3: Youth Political Engagement Cluster 4: Youth Cultures and Values Cluster 5: Youth Leisure • One local partner responsible for one of the clusters together with work package coordinators • E.g. From the cluster Youth Political Engagement three policy reports are made: • Social dialogue • Identifying structural factors hampering social movements • Prospects for political participation • At this level also the survey results should be taken into account in the analysis and reports.

  6. Some of the challenges of multi-sited team ethnography • How to support the common ground of the team and the individual voices at the same time. • Reflexivity, Cooperation and Complementarity • Planning and conducting data collection in a team generates rich and diverse data but also rich and diverse initial reflections – and methodological and substantial learning from each other VS. social and personal challenges • Living with the uncertainty (ref. the everyday-lives of the informants) • To balance the need of individual freedom and sharing. • How to guarantee security of informants AND researchers

  7. Some of the benefits of multi-sited team ethnography • Being able to identify one’s own way to conduct embodied field research may not be even possible without noting the other researchers’ different styles of presence. • The multiple ways of conducting research (and learning different techniques, ethics and politics from each other), multiple forms of simultaneous data gathering and the possibility to share and reflect our different ways to orientate and grasp the fieldwork moments. • The ideal of a team work is not harmony but respect for different ways of thinking and conducting ethnography.

  8. Discussion • What politics? A. Arab-Mediterranean youth political engagement - what knowledge - for what purpose B. Politics of team ethnography and EU-funded projects - how decisions are made on local, national and transnational level • What ethnography? A. Methodological and conceptual challenges - language: local meanings and concepts - familiarity of different methods and analysis tools • Conditions of dialogue?

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