Coping with Uncertainty E-Book

• Herausgeber: Saqi Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 538

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Seven years after the Arab uprisings, the social situation has deteriorated across the Middle East and North Africa. Political, economic and personal insecurities have expanded while income from oil declined and tourist revenues have collapsed due to political instability. Against a backdrop of escalating armed conflicts and disintegrating state structures, many have been forced from their homes, creating millions of internally displaced persons and refugees. Young people are often the ones hit hardest by the turmoil. How do they cope with these ongoing uncertainties, and what drives them to pursue their own dreams in spite of these hardships? In this landmark volume, an international interdisciplinary team of researchers assess a survey of 9,000 sixteen- to thirty-year-olds from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen, resulting in the most comprehensive, in-depth study of young people in the MENA region to date. Given how rapidly events have moved in the Middle East and North Africa, the findings are in many regards unexpected.

Leseprobe

COPING WITH UNCERTAINTY

Coping with Uncertainty

Youth in the Middle East and North Africa

Edited by Jörg Gertel and Ralf Hexel

SAQI

Published by Saqi Books 2018

Copyright © Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung 2018

ISBN 978-0-86356-960-9

eISBN 978-0-86356-970-8

Jörg Gertel and Ralf Hexel have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the authors of this work.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by

Saqi Books

26 Westbourne Grove

London W2 5RH

www.saqibooks.com

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

Typeset by Charles Peyton ([email protected])

Printed in Lebanon

Published in partnership with

Contents

Preface, Ralf Hexel

INTRODUCTION

1.  Youth in the MENA Region, Jörg Gertel

2.  Uncertainty, Jörg Gertel

PART I: HABITS & VALUES

3.  Values, Jörg Gertel & David Kreuer

4.  Religion, Rachid Ouaissa

5.  Gender, Ines Braune

6.  Family, Christoph H. Schwarz

PART II: ECONOMY

7.  Economy and Employment, Jörg Gertel

8.  Middle Class, Jörg Gertel & Rachid Ouaissa

9.  Hunger and Violence, Jörg Gertel & Tamara Wyrtki

10. Mobility, Migration, and Flight, Jörg Gertel & Ann-Christin Wagner

PART III: POLITICS & SOCIETY

11. Communication, Carola Richter

12. Politics, Mathias Albert & Sonja Hegasy

13. Mobilisation, Nadine Sika & Isabelle Werenfels

14. Civic Engagement, Friederike Stolleis

PART IV: COMPARING YOUTH

15. The FES MENA Youth Study and the German Shell Youth Study, Mathias Albert & Jörg Gertel

APPENDICES

Appendix I: Methodology, Thorsten Spengler, Helmut Dietrich, David Kreuer, & Jörg Gertel

Appendix II: Questionnaire

Appendix III: Strata Index

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

About the Authors

Preface

Ralf Hexel

Coping with Uncertainty: Youth in the Middle East and North Africa, a project of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, was produced in partnership with the University of Leipzig, Kantar Public (formerly TNS Infratest Politik-forschung), TNS Morocco, and research centres and polling institutes in the respective countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).1 A scientific advisory board of renowned researchers from the MENA region and Germany developed the scientific concept for the study and the questionnaire used.2 The University of Leipzig drafted the comprehensive questionnaire of approximately 200 questions in close cooperation with the scientific advisory board and the other project partners.

The study is oriented towards two overarching questions: What does the situation look like for the youth six years after the so-called Arab Spring?3 How do young people deal with the new insecurities and uncertainties of their everyday lives? An attempt is made to close knowledge gaps with a wide range of questions, because the everyday situation of young people in the MENA region has never been thoroughly investigated transnationally and systematically, and, to date, only limited findings have been available.

For the survey, interviews were conducted with some 9,000 young people aged 16–30 in eight countries in the MENA region: Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, and Yemen, as well as Syrian refugees living in Lebanon. Thus some 1,000 young people from each country, including Syrian refugees, consented to be interviewed in summer 2016 for sixty minutes. In addition, qualitative interviews were conducted in winter 2016/17, because not all aspects of everyday life, values, and social orientation can be assessed in purely quantitative terms. The names of these respondents have been changed for publication.

The MENA region is in a state of fundamental crisis and upheaval characterised by military conflicts, terrorist attacks, state collapse, and long-running socio-economic problems. This affects young people in unique ways. The authors of the study therefore chose ‘insecurity’ and ‘uncertainty’ as key terms for capturing and describing their situation. Insecurity applies to living conditions and the availability of resources, while uncertainty concerns how they deal with the future as regards their hopes and dreams.

Young people in the MENA region often face the challenge of dealing with fear-filled insecurities in their everyday lives, but at the same time they have hopeful visions of the future. This publication presents examples of how they function in increasingly difficult and conflict-laden circumstances and find solutions to the problems they face. It is noteworthy that the majority of these young adults remain confident about the future despite economic disadvantage, lack of political participation, and the pervasive sense of insecurity that varies from country to country. This is particularly surprising given the disappointed hopes of the Arab Spring uprisings of 2010–11, in which young people in particular were involved. Although their economic situation and social participation have since declined, they are often optimistic about life. Fewer than 10 percent of young people are firmly intent on emigration. Due to their difficult situations, however, they are torn between constantly recurring thoughts of emigration and their strong bonds to their families and their homeland.

Young people are the key players in shaping the future of the MENA region. Those aged 15–29 now account for 30 percent of the population, their highest percentage ever. Their attitudes, values, and visions are clear indicators of possible future developments in the societies in which they live. While the political and economic situations in the MENA countries currently offer little room for optimism, the results of the study paint a picture of young people who are better educated than ever, who are strongly attached to their homeland, who have a positive approach to life, and who are ready to take responsibility and engage socially. The prevailing authoritarian power structures in the majority of their countries, however, prevent them from effectively contributing their talents, knowledge, and commitment in shaping their own lives and their societies. The region will experience stability and development only if young people are able to participate politically and economically in shaping the future. For this to occur requires success in establishing more inclusive societal models.

The present study provides an empirically based contribution to the debate on young people in the MENA region, helping frame it by presenting a broader set of information. The results of the study represent an invitation to further discussion and comparisons of current insights in light of the new findings presented here.

On behalf of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, I would like to thank all of the institutions and individuals that contributed to the preparation of the study. Under sometimes very difficult conditions, they found a way to conduct interviews and otherwise communicate with thousands of young people in the MENA region, to record and evaluate relevant data, and to analyse these data scientifically. Through admirable teamwork and coordination, contributors from eleven countries produced an assessment that represents a major contribution to the study of young people in the MENA region.

I would like to thank the following people in particular: the members of the scientific advisory board, whose knowledge and expertise laid the foundation for the scientific quality of the study; the study co-editor Prof. Dr Jörg Gertel from the University of Leipzig, whose conceptual and substantive contributions significantly shaped the study; my colleague Dr Friederike Stolleis, who coordinated the study’s editorial work and also made important contributions to its content; and Helmut Dietrich, who coordinated the surveys in the participating countries under difficult conditions.

The survey results underlying this study, which have been summarised in tables and graphics, are available at http://www.fes.de/lnk/youth-study.

______________

1. The study has also been published in Arabic – (Beirut, Dar al-Saqi, 2018) – and in German – Zwischen Ungewissheit und Zuversicht. Jugend im Nahen Osten und in Nordafrika (Bonn, Verlag J.H.W. Dietz, 2017).

2. The members of the scientific advisory board were Prof. Dr Mathias Albert (University of Bielefeld), Prof. Dr Asef Bayat (University of Illinois), Professor Emeritus Dr Hajo Funke (Free University of Berlin), Prof. Dr Jörg Gertel (University of Leipzig), Dr Sonja Hegasy (Leib-niz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin), Dr Ghassan Khatib (Birzeit University, Ramallah), Prof. Dr Rachid Ouaissa (University of Marburg), Prof. Dr Hassan Rachik (Université Hassan II, Casablanca), Junior Professor Dr Nadine Sika (American University of Cairo), and Dr Isa-belle Werenfels (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Berlin).

3. The term ‘Arab Spring’ is controversial, both in the region as well as in international scholarly debate, because the seasonal connotation of spring as the beginning of an imminent positive time or development. The authors of the study are aware of this but have decided to use the term despite this ambivalence.

INTRODUCTION

1

Youth in the MENA Region, 2016–17

Jörg Gertel

Coping with Uncertainty: Youth in the Middle East and North Africa addresses two questions: What does the situation look like for youth six years after the so-called Arab Spring? How do young people deal with the new insecurities and uncertainties of their everyday lives? In recent years, terrorism, armed conflicts, and wars have become more prevalent in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), while economic conditions and labour markets have deteriorated in many Arab states, often hitting young people the hardest. The actual situation of youth, however, is largely unknown inside as well as outside the MENA region. In the wake of the social and political upheavals of 2011, renewed interest emerged about the region’s young people, often regarded as the protagonists of the Arab Spring uprisings. Numerous studies, national surveys, and small-scale analyses have been published, but systematic, transnational research on the MENA youth, based on intensive and comparable individual interviews, has not, however, been conducted – until now.

The empirical findings of this study reveal the various uncertainties faced by young people in the MENA region. Two structural dynamics coincide in their lives. On the one hand, adolescence, a sensitive period in life, is characterised by the insecurity of finding one’s own position and role in society. The transition to adulthood is uncertain at many stages even under the best of circumstances. On the other hand is the more recent situation of precariousness and unstable social conditions that has rendered the period of youth in the region even more difficult. Insecurity manifests itself as exposure to violence and a lack of resources, hindering one’s capability to act. Therefore, while insecurity affects these youths’ everyday lives, uncertainty relates to the future. What kind of tactics and strategies help young people cope with angst-producing uncertainty and permit them to live confident lives?

This publication provides answers to this question and presents the key results of some 9,000 interviews of young people in the Arab world aged 16–30.1 The aim of the study is to open up space to analyse the situation of youth in the Arab world more comprehensively than previously possible. The focus is on eight countries, which allows for examining a wide range of daily life in the MENA region: Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, and Yemen. In addition, young Syrian refugees living in Lebanon were included to discern issues and problems concerning migration and flight in the region.

This chapter introduces the surveyed countries and target groups, followed by discussing the study’s design, including the context of current youth research. The individual chapters of the present volume and findings are then summarised.

The MENA Region

Any multi-country study must address the question of whether individual states can be meaningfully compared at all. The development discourse offers insight into juxtaposing national developments. Identifying, measuring, and comparing the so-called development status of countries, as in Table 1.1 for the MENA countries, has been controversial for decades. One position assumes incommensurability, arguing that non-comparable entities and often un-measurable properties are forcibly and incorrectly related to one another by an arbitrary application of numerical indicators (Crush 1995; Escobar 1995). In contrast, another position emphasises that only through aggregated statistical statements can non-observable phenomena be identified, categorised, and investigated (Simon 2006). Finally, there are considerations that topics and topologies, regardless of the methodology by which they are examined, are shaped discursively. They are coined, for instance, by power asymmetries, political desires, or economic interest (Pieterse 2001). In post-colonial situations, like in the Arab world, this may result in the establishment and perpetuation of a supposed inferiority of countries through improper comparisons (Sachs 1992). These arguments should be kept in mind when countries under consideration are classified on the basis of statistical criteria.

For several years, levels of development have been measured according to the Human Development Index (HDI), which examines income in addition to life expectancy and education (see Table 1.1). According to HDI categories, Bahrain has a very high level of development, in 2013 ranking forty-fourth worldwide. Lebanon, Jordan, and Tunisia have achieved a high level of development, while Palestine, Egypt, and Morocco are at a mid level. Yemen has a low level of development, ranked 154th globally. The countries in this study thus represent the spectrum from wealthy to poor and in this way frame various different conditions that affect young people.

Table 1.1     Development Indicators of Arab Countries

Source Arab Human Development Report (UNDP 2016).

National incomes in the MENA region are quite unequal. In Bahrain, which serves as an example of a prosperous country, citizens earn threefold the per capita income of the Lebanese and more than tenfold the average income of Yemenis. In terms of demographics, Egypt is the largest country, with more than 80 million inhabitants, and Bahrain, with 1.3 million, is the smallest. At the same time, Bahrain, like Lebanon and Jordan, is highly urbanised, while in Yemen, Morocco, Egypt, and Tunisia, rural areas and agriculture still play important roles. Moreover, the Arab countries vary in their dependence on remittances, tourism, and foreign investment. In recent years, however, the economic situation has worsened in the region overall, and youth unemployment rates are high.

Terrorist attacks, armed conflicts, and war continue to shape the everyday lives of many people. Yemen is affected on multiple fronts – by war, hunger, starvation, and the spread of infectious diseases. In summer 2017, some seven million people suffered from acute malnutrition, and more than 300,000 suspected cases of cholera were reported. Syria is crumbling into spheres of influence and conflict zones, and hundreds of thousands of people have been killed by acts of war. Another 12 million people have fled: Syrians have become internally displaced persons or refugees in neighbouring countries, including in Lebanon. Syrian refugees in Lebanon represent an extremely vulnerable group that has increasingly become part of everyday reality in the MENA region.2 Meanwhile, Palestine continues to be shaped by Israeli occupation, and in many other places the security situation is tense.

The Study

In view of the political upheavals and problematic security situation in some MENA countries, simultaneously conducting thousands of face-to-face interviews lasting more than an hour each represents a conceptual as well as a logistical challenge. Nevertheless, within the framework of the present study, approximately 9,000 young people aged 16–30 were interviewed over the course of a few weeks in summer 2016 (see Appendix I: Methodology) Three characteristics shape the sample: covering a variety of stages in young people’s lives; the ability to make comparisons among and between countries; and the representative nature of the study including the weighting factors at work.

Given the wide age range of the sample, people at different phases of life and responsibility are covered. On the one hand are the group of young people who still live with their parents (69 percent), and on the other the group of young adults who live with their partners (29 percent).3 The latter are mostly married and in some cases have children of their own. Those living with their parents see themselves primarily as youth (95 percent), as do those with their own households (83 percent). Only a small group of them classify themselves as adults (17 percent). This suggests that about two-thirds of interviewees are tied closely to their parents: they live together, eat together, or support each other financially. In short, they still form a unit of reproduction. This economic, social, and emotional interdependence on their families of origin also holds for young adults with their own households. The structure of the sampling thus allows for the empirical investigation of the transitions from childhood to the adult world and the processes shaping this passage. The process includes, for example, transitioning from education and training to professional life, establishing a partnership or marriage, moving from the parents’ home, and starting a family and having children. This alone makes it clear that ‘youth’ as a single group does not exist. As noted, even the majority of married people still consider themselves to be youth.

The structure of the sample – 1,000 respondents per country – allows for comparing and contrasting the findings between countries. All overarching information – for example, averages for the 9,000 respondents – relates to the nine target groups (i.e. eight countries and the group of Syrian refugees in Lebanon). This generates the effect of each country being equally important, independent of the aspect examined. For example, aspects of demographically tiny Bahrain are compared with populous Egypt, which has 63 times more inhabitants. Thus, while Bahrain and Egypt are vastly different in population size, in terms of economic activity, one can see that the citizens of Bahrain earn an average of four times as much income as Egyptians. However, the overarching findings should not be viewed as representative of the entire MENA region or of the Arab countries. Rather, they represent the study universe of the nine target groups, whereby each country and the Syrian refugees are attributed the same weight. Moreover, the sample size only allows limited analysis of internal differences within each country. In addition, one should keep in mind that spatially manifested differences within countries are more sensibly understood from settlement sizes than in relation to administrative distinctions between urban and rural areas, which are delineated differently from country to country (see Table 1.1).

Three weighting factors structured the sampling of respondents. The selection of respondents and the subsequent weighting ensured that gender ratio and age distribution correspond to each country’s actual demographics, and the regional distribution of the sampling also corresponds, with a few exceptions, to the distribution of the population according to national administrative units (see Appendix). While gender relations and age distribution are balanced and in accordance with national distributions, the empirical findings reveal considerable internal segmentations among young people (Table 1.2). For example, they are quite different in terms of family status and education. Depending on the country, 43 to 87 percent are single, while 13 to 55 percent are already married. As for education, in Bahrain, for example, 56 percent of respondents are students, while only 2 percent of the Syrian refugees are. Employment status also varies. In the majority of countries, 13 to 23 percent of young people work for pay, while in Lebanon 34 percent are employed; and 44 percent of the Syrian refugees living there also work. Thus, very different national contexts characterise the situation of young people in the MENA region.

Table 1.2     Characteristics of Surveyed Youths and Young Adults

Questions 1, 3, 4, 11, 14, 22, 23, 25, 27, 65, 66, 67.

Concerning methodology, the quantitative statistical findings have been supplemented by the results of more than 100 qualitative surveys. At least ten were conducted in each country. These in-depth interviews were carried out during December 2016 and January 2017 and involved people who had previously participated in the quantitative survey (see Appendix, I: Methodology). The six-month gap between the quantitative and qualitative surveys permitted discussion of the first empirical findings with young people. Individual statements from the interviews contextualise the findings presented here.

The following personal positions on the question of what constitutes youth are presented by way of introduction to highlight the spectrum of thought on being a youth and young people’s self-perceptions in the MENA region:

I think that part of youth is doing sports, going to clubs, travelling, and enjoying life. As a young person, I have dreams and plans that I want to achieve. I think about the future, about my children, and what I will provide for them, for example, what education they receive.

Mariam, 26, married, works as a teacher in Bahrain (BA-3)4

In our time, to be young means to enjoy life, to continue with my studies, and at the same time to enjoy my life to the maximum. The time of youth is the most important in life. As young people, we are exposed to many events, and we gather many experiences from different people. This allows us to plan for our future lives.

Hanna, 20, single, from Casablanca, Morocco (MA-10)

There is no doubt that the circumstances that determine our lives today are harder than ever before. I believe the previous generations had a more comfortable life compared to us. They lived their lifestyle in quieter and more stable times. Our lives are fundamentally different from the start, because we grew up with revolutions, unstable conditions in public spaces, the loss of security, the absence of the police, and the experience of several unexpected changes in government.

Sara, 17, student, from Bani Suef, Egypt (EG-2)

Youth is the basis of society and the foundation on which it is built. I mean that the young man is the one who establishes the family. He becomes the spouse and father, the brother who has a position in his country. In order to become a member of society, we must first find a job that permits a standard of living to establish a family, to start a career, and to have aspirations that can grow. At present, I believe young people have no aspirations, because we can’t find work. So how can we start a family, live, eat, or drink? We are not at all safe. Every day we hear of bombs. My sense of security has diminished because of many things. We are experiencing all kinds of violent acts, like explosions and gun battles. When I go out into the streets, I’m not sure I’ll return home uninjured.

Muataz, 29, married, works in Giza, Egypt (EG-3)

As a young man, I am forced to work hard, here or elsewhere. Youth is a time for hard work. The future is unclear and unstable, but I hope for better living and working conditions and also with regard to living standards.

Samir, 26, Ramallah, Palestine (PS-4)

I regularly went to the internet cafe to meet people my age [online], from here and from abroad, for example the USA. I know I work hard and live ‘hand to mouth’. I am not even able to improve my situation or to enhance my possibilities of buying an apartment. I do not mean that I feel like I’m worth less, but I do feel that they have better opportunities there than we have here. They work, and the state helps them, and their parents help them. I do not blame my father for it. It’s not his fault, but we really struggle with the conditions. This is particularly true of the past five years – that is, the period after the revolution and the poor economic conditions that we have at the moment. I have only one vocational school certificate, so I am far from thinking about getting married. This has now become almost impossible. Marriage means having an apartment and that means half a million Egyptian pounds [about 25,000 euros]. I don’t have that. It is hard enough to be well fed. I work just to be able to survive.

Ahmad, 20, works as an electrician in Egypt (EG-8)

These statements illustrate the dynamics of youth as a stage in life. For some, it is a time to enjoy life and fulfil dreams. For others, it means working hard and acting responsibly. For yet another group, what stands out is that being a youth today is not comparable to the experiences of earlier generations. Given the recent economic problems in the MENA region, young people face increasing difficulties in fulfilling their expected social roles, while at the same time their access to new media offers them the possibility of relating their individual situations to others’ experiences globally. These different positions are also apparent and are being addressed in the current research on youth.

Youth Research

Young people in the MENA region have rarely been the subject of social science studies. It is only in the postcolonial era – since the second half of the twentieth century – that ‘youth’ as a social category was conferred social relevance. Until then, the agrarian societies in the Middle East and North Africa primarily distinguished between children and adults. ‘Adolescence’ consisted of the very moment of passing from one life stage to the other, which was marked by such rituals (i.e. rites of passage) as marriage and the birth of one’s children. Two events – the al-Qaida attacks of 11 September 2001 and the Arab Spring of 2010–11 – altered this outlook; public attention scale-jumped, shining an international spotlight on the young people of the region.

In earlier times, the social significance of youth was only of a temporary or passing nature. It meant young men could be recruited for military service, and youth repeatedly became the object of rhetorical engagements, for example, during independence movements and nation-building processes (Ouaissa 2014b; Hecker 2012). They also stood out in the 1970s and 1980s during protest campaigns against state austerity measures (Walton and Seddon 1994), and they made their presence visible during the Palestinian uprising (first intifada) (Larzillière 2004). In short, positive and negative images about youths have alternated over the past few decades (Bayat 2010b), but only in the new millennium did Arab youth attract international attention.

From the beginning, examinations of young people have been concerned with encapsulating their experiences conceptually and empirically (Bourdieu 1980). Three questions are relevant here: What does the term youth represent? Is there a social category within society that can be meaningfully described as ‘youth’? If this category or class exists, how is it defined?

The debate on youth in the MENA region has for a long time been concerned almost entirely with the so-called youth bulge – the growing demographic importance of young people – as a starting point for the formation of a new social class (Dhillon 2008). Indeed, the proportion of young people in MENA societies has never been as high as it is today: those aged 15–29 account for 30 percent of the Arab population (UNDP 2016: 22). Nevertheless, age classifications as social groups remain arbitrary; simply applying an age range hardly serves to adequately delineate social groups. Indeed, several developments intersect when examining the emergence of youth as a socially relevant group.

Among these developments, institutions of socialisation, such as schools and universities, have emerged to make formal education of young people a standardised and mass phenomenon. At the same time, a bundle of transformations are shaping a new labour pool: agricultural labour is declining in importance; wage labour is replacing subsistence activities; child labour is increasingly shunned; and access to remunerated work is increasingly standardised. Simultaneously, urbanisation is growing rapidly, and a new leisure and consumer culture has emerged, often out of the urban fabric. Parallel to these socio-institutional changes responsible for forging youths as a social group, biological developments (i.e. puberty) and social transitions – such as the conclusion of one’s education, the start of professional life, entry into the military as well as moving out of the parental living space, marrying, and having children – play a role in delimiting and defining the phases of youth.

The extent to which young people as a social group play a role in the development of a specific youthful habitus, or lifestyle, remains questionable (Bayat 2010b), as the sheer number of young people, with a multitude of everyday practices and life plans, manifests as diversity rather than uniformity. Post-colonial studies reveal that social categories are not fixed per se, but are continuously negotiated based on divergent and converging interests. From this perspective, both youth identities and youth as a category represent bundles of narratives within a plurality of discursive fields. This corresponds to the reflections of Bennani-Chraïbi (1994), who in the 1990s labelled identity formation as bricolage culturel to describe the ‘constructed identities’ of Moroccan youth (see also Schaeffer Davis and Davis, 1989).

With biographical transitions towards adulthood, in particular marriage, increasingly being postponed, the conditions for identity formation have once again changed. More and more young people who leave school and remain unemployed, as well as university graduates, lack the resources to buy or rent an apartment, a precondition for marrying, as the interview with Ahmad from Egypt illustrates. Instead of entering the world of adulthood, young people remain in ‘waithood’ (Singerman 2007), a kind of precarious latency that greatly prolongs the duration of youth (Dhillon and Yousef 2009; Honwana 2013). This phase is characterised by ambivalence and uncertainty.

On the one hand, this phase is an expression of economic problems and involves forced dependencies on the family and an absence of self-determination. Due to lack of work, young people must continue living with their families, which entails much more than merely ‘waiting’. These young people are unable to disentangle or separate themselves from their narrow socialisation unit and to develop standing of their own. They become an enclosed group or ‘contained youth’ (Gertel 2017). On the other hand, this period may also generate creative and transformative potential. Identities may become more complex; different attitudes toward life unfold; and youth cultures develop. In contention with Mannheim’s (1928) classical generation concept, and implicitly in the continuation of Bennani-Chraïbi’s reflections, Emma Murphy asserts,

In the case of Arab youth, individuals may move in and out of this generational narrative fluidly – experiences like unemployment, delayed marriage or political frustration draw people in, but the patchwork composition of contemporary youth identities means that nothing is set in stone, different components of the narrative have greater or lesser significance for individuals and at different points in time, and opportunities or material fortune can render it less immediately relevant. (2012: 16)

Amidst the advancing global dissolution of national borders in terms of cultural flows and economic articulations, studies on youth culture have come to focus on group formation, the importance of peer groups, and subcultures, such as music scenes (Hecker 2012; Swedenburg 2012). It should, therefore, be kept in mind that while youth takes shape as a social category in the MENA region, its internal differentiation is simultaneously increasing.

Parallel to the establishment of youth as a social group, both the societal role and influence of young people have recently changed. They are not only regarded as actors for shaping the future, but are more precisely considered – especially in the African context – as ‘social shifters’ (Durham 2000) and ‘social breakers and makers’ (Honwana and DeBoek 2005). Young people in the Arab world are better educated than ever and are more media savvy than all other social groups (Braune 2008; Richter 2011; Transfeld and Werenfels 2016). Because many have English as a common language, they are increasingly able to form cross-border social networks. They were, temporarily, the central protagonists of the Arab Spring, kicking off various protest movements (Alhassen and Shihab-Eldin 2012; Khalaf and Khalaf 2012; Bayat 2017). Yet, since the uprisings of 2011, little has improved for them. To the contrary, their economic situation has deteriorated. Institutional permeability has decreased, and social participation seems more difficult than ever. Their position in the societies of the MENA region is thus currently in question.

In the past ten years, the research landscape dealing with young people in the MENA region has become more diverse, more multilingual, and in some aspects more complex. German-, French-, and English-language works, in addition to Arabic and other languages, have been published. At the same time, the production of knowledge about youth has increasingly become a political arena shaped by a struggle for interpretation, which is often reduced to two perspectives: ‘youth as a problem and danger’ or ‘the problems and dangers of youth’. Statistical data, especially those making transnational connections, remain rare. Detailed, aggregated, empirical findings explicitly about young people are thus difficult to access. Such studies are usually produced by government agencies within individual Arab countries and by market and opinion research. Yet civil society and international agencies are also interested in empirical surveys, as are private research institutes and public universities. This has resulted in a competitive field of knowledge production, which, to simplify, can be divided into two groups.

On the one hand, there are studies conducted by international organisations, national government authorities, semi-public organisations, market research companies, and public relations firms. These actors tend to take quantitative approaches (Lamloum and Ali Ben Zina 2015; Burson-Marsteller 2015). They use different survey methodologies, such as telephone inquiries, online surveys, and standardised questionnaires. Frequently, such studies focus on just one country, so coverage of the region is not comprehensive. When they adopt an interregional scale, their research often remains descriptive, with little analytical depth, and frequently relies on secondary data. Education, labour markets, and employment are favoured topics, along with labour migration and consumer behaviour. One crucial example of youth research is the Arab Human Development Report 2016: Youth and the Prospects for Human Development in a Changing Reality (UNDP 2016). No quantitative surveys were conducted for its compilation. Instead, its authors evaluated existing secondary data, such as that stemming from the World Value Survey, market and opinion research outfits like Gallup, and the World Bank. In many cases, information from national statistical institutes was also essential. Here, however, knowledge production is tied to institutional interests, which leaves its integrity open to doubt. In the case of the 2016 Arab Human Development Report, opaque editorial processes have been made public. In particular, it was shown that individual content was politically negotiated – for example, by submitting it to ambassadors for comment – and content subsequently censored (Al-Ali et al. 2016).

On the other hand are studies carried out by university and academic research institutions (Bonnefoy and Catusse 2013; Gertel and Ouaissa 2014; Hegasy and Kaschl 2007; Herrera and Bayat 2010). Here, different knowledge systems come together at an international level. As there are different national experiences with youth studies, as well as corresponding linguistic misunderstandings and lack of awareness of others’ work resulting from insufficient language skills, however, the exchange remains limited. Qualitative approaches are usually preferred, using such methodologies as field research, qualitative surveys, target group discussions, and media analysis. Often, the choice of methodology is constrained, because the financial resources of academic research are limited, or elaborate approval procedures cannot be fulfilled.

Investigations in the MENA region have focused, for example, on questions of identity negotiation, youth cultures, and media use, as well as on political mobilisation, resistance, and protest. In the wake of the Arab Spring, the Sahwa Project (2014–17) and Power2Youth (2015–17), both consisting of international scholars funded by European resources, significantly broadened the research on youth in the region, generating new insights and identifying important research perspectives. This materialised in dozens of working papers, interviews documented on film, personal portraits, and conferences. The Sahwa Project, composed of Arab and Euro-pean partners, examined transitions, transformation processes, and future perspectives in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, and Lebanon. The work of Power2Youth, which analysed the causes and dynamics leading to the exclusion or inclusion of Arab young people in the labour market and civilian life, was largely based on existing quantitative data and addressed the transformational effects of individual and collective youth action. Its focus was on Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, and Turkey. In these cases, scholars have been quite critical of the policy goals associated with both these programmes. In a paper scrutinising the governability of youth, Catusse and Destremau contend,

From a bird’s eye view, the public policy discourse on youth and the ‘youth problem’ is abundant and sometimes excessive. Despite the institutions founded at the establishment of the regimes and dedicated to Youth [and] the installation of the youth problem as a major concern, a closer look brings to light the fact that concrete data and information about youth are often sparse and not always reliable. These institutions and concrete mechanisms for implementing policies are, in reality, not very significant. More often than not, they are empty shells, heavily politicised but with little means. (2016: 14)

Challenged by such considerations, the present study aims to make a contribution to situate the debate about young people in the MENA region on a more comprehensive, information and data basis. The following results thus represent an invitation to complementary reading – in other words, to reconcile familiar insights with the new findings presented here.

Study Focuses and Findings

Uncertainty

Jörg Gertel explores the meaning of uncertainty from conceptual and empirical perspectives. Uncertainty refers to what the future might hold; most, if not all of it, is unknown to us. The future cannot truly be foreseen. We know only to a certain extent how things will unfold. Nevertheless, individuals as well as societies are continually trying to hedge against uncertainty, orienting everyday life towards the future in trying to plan it. While uncertainty thus relates to the future, insecurity concerns the present and the capability to act. Respective tactics and strategies largely depend on access to resources. It is young people with poor resources who are particularly affected by insecurity. The analytical focus is therefore on the question of how securities are produced and for whom corresponding strategies tackling uncertainties are most successful.

Values

Jörg Gertel and David Kreuer investigate the values of young people in North Africa and the Middle East. Values are understood as orientation patterns and as reference points for individual and collective goals. The great multitude of values and scripts for life are subject to change; they are by no means stable or fixed. While fundamental institutions of socialisation – such as family and school – instil and transfer predominantly country-specific characteristics, three general aims stand out as a consequence of growing uncertainty. Resting on a foundation of respondents’ almost uncontested and hopeful trust in God, these consist of a desire for justice, order, and security; a desire for an appropriate standard of living, which is often connected to obtaining an adequate job; and a desire for a trusting partner and good family relations. The authors reveal that four bundles of values – sense of community, orientation towards success, quest for freedom, and desire for decency – are important for today’s youth in the region. Individual values and the realities of life, however, are complex, and given the disturbing experiences of war and violence, biographical disruptions become more common. Unconditional trust in God, however, a very personal matter, provides many with confidence, even in times of crises.

Religion

Rachid Ouaissa examines whether the increase in young people’s religiousness, which has been observed for several years, reflects a rise in or return to religion or whether it represents individual strategies aimed at establishing one’s own identity in an environment of tension brought about by pressures of globalisation and the longing for local culture. The empirical data at a glance paint a picture of MENA youths as rather pious. Women feel more religious than men. In general, heightened religiousness often starts after youths finish school and is found mainly in large towns and among the wealthy, especially when the father has a high level of education. In contrast, less religious youth hail from families with lower educational capital, that is, from society’s lower middle and poor classes. In general, young people, as noted, consider religion first of all to be a private matter. Religiousness is a source of hope and optimism. Religion for the MENA youth today no longer serves political or ideological purposes, but instead centres on individual well-being and self-discipline, making it more of a channel for spirituality. Where one finds high degrees of piousness, it is primarily felt at the individual level, no longer in terms of a collective social utopia. Ouaissa interprets this as a decline in political religiousness and as an increase in social religiousness. This leads him to consider whether the Arab world is thus experiencing the beginning of a new secular age.

Gender

Ines Braune addresses the changing gender roles among young people in the MENA region. She argues that inequalities in Arab societies are often framed primarily as gender-specific, an approach that does not take into account other decisive factors and instead often obscures them. Focusing on four themes – marriage, education, future aspirations, and sexual harassment – she draws a picture that reveals both the interrelationship of different spheres of life and the shifts and further deterioration of intersectional inequalities. Here, armed conflicts, such as in Syria and Yemen, play a structuring role, as do certain attitudes shared by men and women. For example, while at first glance women appear to marry early, a more detailed analysis reveals that it is young people from the lower classes, men and women alike, who have taken this step. With regard to sexual harassment, the author shows that many more women are affected. That said, it also appears that young men and women hold equally misogynist attitudes, regardless of their level of education. Gender issues are thus always embedded in society and need to be addressed within social configurations.

Family

Christoph Schwarz analyses the role of the family and shows that it continues to play a role, indeed a key role, for young people in Arab countries. Especially in the case of financial need, the family and networks of relatives constitute the most important contacts. Young people themselves are interested in strong family ties, consider having their own children to be important, and would change little about their upbringing. At the same time, they are also pursuing autonomous goals in this regard, for example, wanting to select their own marriage partner. On the other hand, the question of marriage does not determine their self-perception as youth or adult, as is often assumed. Schwarz concludes that although economic and social opportunities for the youths’ and parents’ generations are different – the parents perhaps having had more opportunities due to the political and social realities of their youth – young people today generally do not hold this against the older generation or respond to it with misgivings, demands, or hostility.

Economics

Jörg Gertel investigates how young people – in the face of three decades of neo-liberal politics, including massive privatisation and the dismantling of the welfare state – are assessing their economic situation. With respect to their parents, the younger generation is affected by three dynamics: lack of job security, growing economic polarisation, and the failure of educational promise. Even with significantly improved education, social upward mobility has moved beyond the reach of many. Indeed, the abolition of the welfare state has been accompanied by a massive decline in reliable public employment. Today, only one-third of young people (pupils and students excluded) work in any capacity; all others are temporarily or even permanently without work. Even then, nearly one-half of this labour force is precariously employed. Thus the importance of the family as a social and economic security net continues and increases. Breaking with one’s family is almost unthinkable for the current generation of contained youth, because few other institutions can cushion their economic insecurity. Insecurity hence becomes a chronic condition, with precariousness omnipresent. Today, young families starting out as well-educated, dual earners should have optimistic outlooks for the future, but instead they are constrained by massive economic problems. About half of the young men who are already head of a household judge the economic situation of their families to be ‘rather bad’ or ‘very bad’. Thus, new social ruptures are evident. Exacerbating this situation, those young people still living with their parents are in a situation of ‘borrowed security’; the dramatic impact of uncertainty hits the moment they leave their parents’ household.

Middle class

Jörg Gertel and Rachid Ouaissa reveal that the Arab middle class, an important factor for social stability in past decades, is disintegrating. Young people are still able to identify their family’s class, largely based on the education and occupation of their parents, but society has been polarised by a series of ruptures driven by two intertwined dynamics: over the last generation, shifts in employment structures have led to significant declines in economic security. More recently, this situation has been compounded by wars, armed conflicts, revolutions, and internal unrest, further shattering human security. In the process, the middle class has crumbled into various segments exhibiting differing degrees of instability and precariousness. As a result, the young generation finds itself involved in two ambivalent processes. First, with the dwindling stability of class positions, the young generation is losing an aspect of their social identity that once provided certainty. When social structures collapse, identifying with the state is no longer easy or a given, especially as regards its political practices. Second, political mobilisation – defined as the struggle for participation – is most pronounced among groups that have recently experienced social downward mobility. These experiences are ultimately reflected in the preferences of young people for specific political systems. Those amongst the economic winners – that is, the upper middle class – represent the largest group of those who desire a ‘strong man’ at the top of their country’s leadership, while a religious system based on Islamic law is most often favoured by the lower middle classes and the poor. Although the majority, primarily embodied by the core of the middle class, still prefer a democratic system, this middle class is increasingly falling apart.

Hunger and Violence

Jörg Gertel and Tamara Wyrtki emphasise that in the context of growing uncertainty, two forms of security are decisive: securing basic needs and the absence of direct and structural violence. The latter includes malnutrition and hunger. The findings reveal the varying characteristics of food insecurity and violence affecting some young people. In Egypt and other import-dependent countries, for example, they often lack the purchasing power to acquire the food available. In Palestine, on the other hand, Israel’s policies fuel poverty and food insecurity, amongst other things. Meanwhile in Yemen and Syria, millions of young people, including children, are threatened by war and hunger. They have experienced collapsed economies, breakdowns in social relations, and the death of family members. Often, even family members are no longer in a position to help each other. Thus, many young people are traumatised, feeling themselves hopeless, without prospects. According to the authors, long chains of transactions causally link spaces of hunger and violence (such as those within the MENA region) with spaces of profit (such as stock market trading floors), although territorially far apart. Insecurity is thus characterised by the disintegration of social responsibilities, while liabilities – concerning speculation and business deals contributing to war and hunger – have, until now, rarely been pinpointed.

Migration

Jörg Gertel and Ann-Christin Wagner scrutinise young people’s mobility in the Arab world, an aspect of society often misjudged. The empirical findings reveal that only a small group, less than 10 percent of youth, is firmly committed to migration. Moreover, labour migration among them is usually to other Arab countries, and while the desire to work abroad is linked to historical, colonial, and linguistic connections to Europe; it remains limited. The opportunities made possible by virtual mobility, the fortification of many countries’ external borders, and the high cost of migration have all contributed to this dynamic. Those affected by precarious situations are, however, torn between thoughts of migration and deep, emotional connections with their home countries and families. Emigration is thus by no means understood as a simple ‘way out’. The authors reveal that mobility among young people is generally shaped by three mechanisms: readiness to change one’s life plan, with single men exhibiting the greatest flexibility; previous migration experiences within the family network, which further increases the probability of individual mobility; and as a consequence of armed conflicts, with forced migration, including escape and asylum, being an everyday reality for many Arab youth. In countries hosting refugees, enforced immobility often constitutes additional uncertainties, exacerbating insecurities in everyday life.

Communication

Carola Richter explores the role new media plays in the everyday lives of young people in the MENA region. The coining of the terms ‘Facebook revolution’, ‘Twitter protest’, and ‘Al Jazeera effect’ points to the seemingly immense political significance of new media. The author argues, however, that while media usage is converging globally – the same technologies and formats are available around the world – an internal shift in media use has appeared. Due to long-standing distrust of the media, and the recent withdrawal of the MENA youth from day-to-day politics, new media are increasingly solely used for private communications, in particular to maintain social networks. Smartphones, like no other devices, enable easy access to the internet and allow young people to keep in touch with friends and relatives as well as share music and pictures digitally. At the same time, traditional mass media, often state-controlled, remain present and continue to play a role for young people with limited access to digital media, such as in Yemen and with the Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Richter concludes that for young people, media-based communication works in two directions, as triggering and as coping mechanisms in dealing with the uncertainties of everyday life.

Politics

Mathias Albert and Sonja Hegazy deal with the importance of politics for youths, looking at how close to or far from politics they have positioned themselves six years after the events of the Arab Spring. Three findings are crucial. First, the 2011 uprisings show the potential for politicising young people in Arab countries, which in many cases allow only limited political participation. Second, a large majority of young people have distanced themselves from politics after the region’s recent experiences, emphasising that they are no longer interested in politics. In doing so, however, they are often referring to party politics, because at the same time, they also express interest and commitments related to the arena of everyday politics. Third, in a seeming contradiction, a large proportion of young people want a greater state presence. This primarily concerns improved social security, which they think the state should provide in the face of growing uncertainty. Hence, the authors conclude that young people embody significant potential for constructive changes to the political order in the future.

Mobilisation

Nadine Sika and Isabelle Werenfels highlight political mobilisation among young adults. They conclude that the events of 2010–11 represent the climax of their political mobilisation geared towards changing state–society relations. In the aftermath of this, the question in many cases now concerns the extent to which youths are actors of change. Despite the disillusion of many with formal political processes in recent years, young people remain ready to become politically active. The areas in which they might act, however, have shifted. They are now more interested in standing up for socio-economic objectives than for political change. The findings reveal that young men aged 22–25 mobilise most frequently. This includes those who have experienced violence in their lives and those more pessimistic than others of their generation. Mobilised youth also show higher confidence in non-governmental organisations than non-activists do. Moreover, young people living in republics who experienced a regime change in 2011 appear to be more likely to mobilise than those from monarchies. The authors contend that in general, the politically active as well as the non-engaged are equally less interested in political freedom and civil rights – including minority rights – than in the security of basic needs and the absence of violence.

Civic Engagement

Friederike Stolleis analyses the civic engagement of young people in the MENA region. Based on the empirical findings, she underscores that they are generally willing to work for the interest of others as well as for social objectives and specific topics. Rarely, however, do they engage through formal civil society organisations (CSOs), such as school or student groups, youth groups, associations, religious institutions, political parties, and trade unions. Only one-third of those engaged become members in CSOs. While wealthier young people are more likely to be more active than poorer ones, they are rarely members of CSOs. Young people of the lower and middle classes are more strongly committed within the framework of such organisations. The latter are also more likely to be pessimistic and to have experienced uncertainty than their peers. According to the author, the motivations of today’s young people differ from those of earlier generations. For the latter, civic engagement often occurred in the context of anti-colonial liberation movements or in relation to struggles for an independent state. With the change in young people’s values and goals, and the firm grip with which the authoritarian states of the region control and co-opt civil society institutions, the institutions have obviously lost their appeal today.

Comparison with the German Shell Youth Study

Mathias Albert and Jörg Gertel compare the findings of the present study with the outcomes of the long-running German Shell Youth Study. The purpose of the comparison is to situate the empirical results of the MENA study within a broader societal context and to establish a reflective means for estimating the range of analytical explication. This is possible because some key concepts and fields of content in both studies not only overlap, but also explicitly relate to each other. The authors emphasise that while country-specific differences are crucial, they are in some ways greater within the MENA region than between individual Arab countries and Germany. In terms of commonalities between MENA and German youths (aged 16–25), the issue of security is first in almost all areas of daily life. This applies, for example, to labour market access and to personal security in general. It becomes obvious, however, that Arab youths often find themselves at structural disadvantages; they are often forced into greater dependences restraining, for example, the possibility of being successful in globalising labour markets.

§

In conclusion, the present study is predominantly empirical in nature. It enables, first of all, young people from the Arab world to ‘speak’, transmitting their voices to the general public. It is thus driven only to a limited extent by theoretical principles. The empirical findings, however, have not been generated in a theory-free environment, and their representation does not unfold in an unbiased or neutral political space. Hence, later discussions should examine the ambivalence of theoretical coining, problem orientation, and description on a case-by-case basis. It should be kept in mind that this is the first study of its kind on the MENA region. It will thus yield even more value as an instrument when it is repeated in later years, as in the case of the Shell Youth Study.

______________

1. Additional empirical findings by country are available online, http://www.fes.de/lnk/youth-study.

2. In 2014, 41 percent of forcibly displaced people worldwide were recorded as being in Arab countries, although they represent only 5 percent of the global population. In addition, for each person who dies in armed conflict, three to fifteen others die indirectly from illnesses, medical complications, and nutritional deficiencies (UNDP 2016: 39).

3. A small group, 2 percent, live in other configurations.

4. The following codes represent the number of the qualitative interview undertaken in the respective country (here: Bahrain; see also Appendix I: Methodology)

2

Uncertainty

Jörg Gertel

THIS CHAPTER INTRODUCES the conceptual dimension of uncertainty and illustrates, based on empirical findings, how uncertainties affect the everyday lives of young people in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and how the youth cope with them. The primary aim is to scrutinise their vulnerability within the context of growing insecurity within the MENA region in relation to group and country specificities. I argue that establishing security in its various forms serves as a means to hedge against uncertainties. But the strategies deployed to construct security are not only limited, they also vary in scope, depending on the structure of exposure and the resources available to one. Moreover, given the accelerated transformation of social conditions, previously successful strategies increasingly no longer work. Uncertainty and insecurity continue to expand, particularly affecting young people in the MENA region.

Generally speaking, uncertainty is part of everyday life. It relates to what the future holds. A great deal, if not everything in this regard, is unknown to us. It cannot be predicted. On the one hand, incidents to come are situated outside the realm of human influence. On the other hand, even if future events can be influenced, individual and societal actions will always entail uncertainties. Human action constantly generates unintended consequences, whereas reflexivity, the permanent coupling of action with the current state of knowledge, remains limited. Hence, we can know only to a certain extent how matters will develop. Regardless, individuals and societies constantly try to hedge against uncertainties, orienting certain aspects of everyday life towards the future in developing tactics and strategies in planning ahead.

Uncertainty is unequally distributed across space and time. It is not a constant, unchanging property of the future, but instead varies, depending on how it is perceived, experienced, and handled. The spectrum of uncertainty may encompass situations in which even the most basic of certainties involving knowledge about the immediate future is lacking. Take for