GDAI Webinar #9 - Engajamento político da juventude na África Lusófona (Youth Political Engagement in Lusophone Africa)

Aleida Borges (Kings College London), Dércio Tsandzana (Sciences Po Bordeaux)

Please note this webinar will be delivered in Portuguese.

Mozambique and Cabo Verde are two countries united by the same language but with different political trajectories. While the former is seen as a mirror of a deficient democracy, Cabo Verde is in turn seen as an example to be followed on the African continent and beyond. Both are countries whose demography is mainly made up of young people, although this is a reality that is not supported by the way in which politicians respond to the concerns of this same population group.

Thus, seeking to discuss the practices and experiences of political participation of young Mozambicans and Cabo Verdeans, we argue that young people face challenges which do not find an adequate political response, which is why they resort to "new", non-conventional forms of political engagement, characterised essentially by the social networks of the Internet and activism.

Speaker Biographies

Dércio Tsandzana is a Mozambican PhD student in Political Science (Sciences Po Bordeaux, France). He holds an MA in Political Science at the same University and has more than five years of experience working on youth, Internet, social media and political participation in Mozambique, including on-line activism for Global Voices International. His PhD research examines the role of social media in the youth political participation in Mozambique. Alongside his PhD, Tsandzana undertook research work focusing on youth political participation, digital rights and data privacy with the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA), the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) and the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms.

Aleida Mendes Borges is a PhD candidate at King’s College London. Her research interest focuses on the political participation and engagement of women, youth and the diaspora in Lusophone Africa. Her current research project focuses on how youth navigate spaces of political marginalisation in Cabo Verde and São Tomé e Principe to respond to local challenges and engage the State. She comes from an interdisciplinary background and holds a BA in Law with French, an LLM in International Legal Practice and an MSc in Research for International Development. She is currently working as a researcher at the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s.

Registration

Register now directly with the Zoom registration link .

Contact email: am131@soas.ac.uk