Dr. Craig Jeffrey has been awarded a £1.2 million Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) grant as sole Principal Investigator to examine youth politics in South Asia. It was the second largest standard grant awarded by the ESRC in 2011.
Unemployment among young people is a major problem around the world. The widespread rise of the “educated unemployed youth” raises pressing questions about politics, social change, and the role of education in situations of economic uncertainty. But to date these questions have tended to be only the subject of journalistic conjecture.
The new project led by Dr Craig Jeffrey will provide one of the first ethnographic examinations of educated unemployed young people’s political practices in South Asia – a region especially affected by youth joblessness. A team of six academics will conduct intensive research with unemployed youth in India, Sri Lanka and Nepal, comparing their responses to unemployment in each place. They will contribute to academic debates on youth, civil society, education, and globalisation, and they will also challenge media stereotypes of youth – for example as “heroes or villains”.
If you would like to read more News articles, please see our News Archive.
