Youth and the future in times of crisis; gendered life visions and vulnerabilities

Performed among young Czechs of 17-18 years old living in a small North Bohemian town, the project explores young people’s dreams and wishes for the future in terms of work/career, family plans and mobility. The project also aims at getting hold of the youth’s ideas about the future more in general; their dreams, but also their worries and anxieties, and the way that these relate to current European/global economic crises and other global instabilities such as environmental concerns. Theoretically, the project is founded in anthropological and sociological conceptualization of time, future and the imagination, and feminist scholarship on gendered labour market participation, discursive ‘naturalization’ of gendered differences in work, and the public-private binary. The project is a follow-up study of the project Growing up Global? A comparative study of belonging, gendered identities and imagined futures in the Czech Republic, Norway and Tunisia (Funded by the Meltzerfoundation and Friforsk, UiB, with  Marit Tjomsland (external link) and Gry Heggli), exploring ways that globalisation influences the dreams and wishes of adolescents in the Western European border areas, and how such globalisation interacts with local ideals for a good and proper life and local gender norms.

The project is funded by Småforsk, UiB, and Meltzerfondet, UiB.