Youth transitions to the labour market in the Middle East and North Africa
Tampere University in collaboration with the research project What works? Youth transitions from education to employment in the Middle East and North Africa (2019–2023) funded by the Research Council of Finland organizes a hybrid Studia Generalia lecture series in the Fall 2023. As part of it Samuli Schielke will be visiting Tampere University September 11th 2023 and Marko Juntunen October 9th 2023.
This lecture series explores the issue of youth employment in the Middle East and North Africa. Internationally esteemed scholars present their recent and on-going research on different aspects of youth employment in the region and in Finland. The lectures cover approaches from large-scale structural issues and processes to the dynamics of precarious work and everyday life in small settings. Twenty-two MENA countries (Middle East and North Africa) have their own policies and labour market realities, and the country cases will provide the particularities in the MENA region.
The Studia Generalia lecture series is intended for everyone: professionals, researchers, and students interested in knowing more about the topic. Coordination of the lectures is done by university lecturer Henri Onodera (University of Helsinki), researcher Oona Myllyntaus (Tampere University), and postdoctoral researcher Yahia Benyamina (Tampere University, Research Center in Social and Cultural Anthropology CRASC, Algeria) who will also act as a discussant.
We wish all warmly welcome!
Program of Studia Generalia lecture series (in English, hybrid)
Tampere University, September 4th – October 9th, 2023
All lectures are held at 5 pm. – 6.30 pm. (Finnish time, UTC+3)
Zoom link for the What works? lecture series: https://tuni.zoom.us/j/61314450145
No registration needed.
Monday 4th September, 2023
Ragui Assaad I University of Minnesota, US
Lecture title: Socioeconomic status and the changing nature of school-to-work transitions in Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia
Online
Monday 11th September, 2023
Samuli Schielke I Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Germany
Lecture title: The dream of stability: Egyptian migrations and homes in a world of economic growth
Online & Venue: City Centre Campus, Main building, room A07
Monday 18th September, 2023
Mustapha Radji I University of Abdelhamid Ibn Badis, Mostaganem, Algeria
Lecture title: Youth employment policies in Algeria 1990–2022: What works and what doesn’t?
Online
Monday 25th September, 2023
Linda Herrera I University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, US
Lecture title: Youth in the MENA as the “Precariat”: Implications for School to Work Transitions
Online
Monday 2nd October, 2023
Fatma Raach I University of Jendouba, Tunisia
Lecture title: The informal work of young people: Is it really a choice? Analyzing the obstacles relating to access to the formal economy
Online
Monday 9th October, 2023
Marko Juntunen I University of Helsinki, Finland
Lecture title: Future plans in multicultural suburb: Diasporic experiences of growing up in Finland
Online & Venue: City Centre Campus, Main building, room A07
Biographies of speakers
His main research interests are education, labor policy, and labor market analysis in developing countries with a particular interest in the Middle East and North Africa. Among his recent publications on young people is the journal article Excluded generation: the growing challenges of labor market insertion for Egyptian youth (2021). Orcid
The Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota ranks among the top professional public policy and planning schools in the United States.
Samuli Schielke is a social and cultural anthropologist writing about contemporary Egypt and the Gulf region. He is a senior research fellow at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO). He is author of the books The Perils of Joy (2012), Egypt in the Future Tense (2015), Migrant Dreams (2020), and Shared Margins (2021). His current research follows the migratory and work trajectories of men and fewer women from Northern Egypt in pursuit of the dream of stability. More information
Mustapha Radji is professor of sociology at the University of Abdelhamid Ibn Badis, Mostaganem, Algeria where he leads the laboratory of “Dialogue of civilizations, cultural diversity and philosophy of peace“. His research focuses on the religion and culture of economic growth, youth inclusion, and exclusion. Among his latest articles are Teaching of entrepreneurship to students of Social Sciences in Algeria (2020), and Religiosity and Economic Attitudes in Algeria (2020).
Linda Herrera is a social anthropologist with regional expertise in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and longstanding interests in education and power, youth and citizenship, and international development and critical democracy. She is a professor in Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her books include Cultures of Arab Schooling (2006), Being Young and Muslim (2010), Revolution in the Age of Social Media (2014), Wired Citizenship (2014), Global Middle East (2021) and Educating Egypt (2022).
Fatma Raach is an assistant professor at the University of Jendouba and a member of the International Law Laboratory at the University of Carthage, Tunisia. She holds a PhD in public international law with expertise in human rights and migration studies. She led recently the project “legal clinics on migration” and participated also in the Asylum project that analyzed EU policies in migration management. With the committee of experts at Cornell University, she contributed a study on African responses to migration and the guiding principles on the rights of migrants. She currently chairs the Tunisian Association of International Law.
Marko Juntunen is a university lecturer in Middle Eastern Studies at Helsinki University and holds the title of docent in the Faculty Common Matters (Faculty of Arts), University of Helsinki. He is a social anthropologist working with social, political and cultural aspects of mobility, gender relations, violent extremism, multiculturalism and Muslim diasporas in Europe, Iraq and Morocco. Juntunen has extensive experience with multi-sited fieldwork and research in transnational practices as well as with research leadership and coordination. He is the author of the books Islamin arki – maailma marokkolaisen silmin (2005), Abu Ghraib – Varissuo: irakilaismiehen matka Saddamin selleistä Suomeen (2007), Resettled refugees and asylum seekers in the Finnish housing market: Iraqi, Syrian and Eritrean experiences (2020) and Matkalla islamilaisessa Suomessa (2020). Orcid
More information of the research project can be found here.