Reconceptualizing the youth and waithood notions: African youth agency and rural livelihoods in artisanal and small-scale mining

Abstract

This paper seeks to revisit the notion that Africa's youth are caught up in waithood by providing empirical data and critical analysis of the perspectives of youth engaged in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM). Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews from multiple episodes of research in Ghana, we offer seven (7) key findings to argue that the situation of African youth is far more complex and nuanced than the simple portrayal that they are stuck in waithood – i.e. unable to enter the formal labor market to attain respectful adulthood. Thus, our findings offer three (3) perspectives which reflect better the reality of the African youth, enabling us to reconceptualize waithood experiences: Time-bound waithood or waithood temporality, Survival-hood, and Ensnared waithood. The time-bound waithood or waithood temporality reflects a situation where the youth choose to participate in informal sector activities like ASM as a temporal livelihood strategy or as a transition process while negotiating access to well-paid jobs in the formal sector that offer job security. The survival-hood is where youth assert their individual and collective agency to participate in informal sector jobs (in this case, ASM operations) as a survival mechanism, reflecting different livelihood possibilities and complementarities. The ensnared waithood reflects the situation where some youths are caught up in a web of their socialization process or enculturation which implants in their minds that good jobs are those of formal sector or salaried employment which are primarily based in the urban economy. From these perspectives, we argue that waithood is both a process (i.e. transitional) and an end in itself depending on the situation in which the youth perceive formal labor jobs and the willingness to utilize their agency to create their own work or secure informal sector jobs amidst structural constraints or neoliberal policies inhibiting employment for young people in the formal labor market. Based on our findings, we develop a Youth agency outcome framework (YAOF) which highlights how structural constraints (such as government policies, neoliberal policies, social norms and regulations within an economic sector) serve as an impediment to formal sector employment for tertiary graduates (educated youths). The framework further highlights how structural constraints trigger the utilization of capital assets in determining and influencing youth agency in the exploration and subsequent participation in informal sector jobs like ASM and the associated outcomes – such as financial independence, sustainable income, economic support for family members, marriage, and household formation – for the youths involved in the economic activity. Our findings provide critical implications for youth employment policies, interventions, and programs in Africa.