Seminar on 'Profiles on Youth':

Multi-faceted emerging trends in Youth

by Indeewara Thilakarathne

Youth, being an important phase in transition from adolescence to adulthood, has been an excellent research premise for a host of social scientists and sociologists to shed light on myriads of aspects of Youth and the emerging social order against the omni-present globalization, its allied uncertainties in the job market and the trickle down effect of it on Youth in general and society at large.

Sri Lankan sociologists and researchers having taken this fact into consideration had done a couple of researches into the multi-faceted profiles on youth and presented their findings at the recently concluded Seminar held at Goethe-Institute Colombo.

The second seminar in a series of seminars titled "Profiles on Youth" organized by the Goethe-Institute Colombo in association with the South Asia Institute and the Department of Sociology, University of Colombo was held with the participation of foreign academics.

Apart from contributing to the existing corpus of knowledge in the areas of youth studies in Sri Lanka and emerging trends in youth, the academic papers, specially presented by two visiting academics, Prof.Achim Schroeder of the University of Darmstadt, Germany and Rama Rao, Muskaan, Vishakha Jaipur, India, at the Seminar , have dealt extensively with the subjects of "Adolescent identity formation in a disembodied life-coping environment" and the social space created by the emergence of mobile phones into the lives of female students in a conservative Indian campus.

Youth trends in Germany

Having discussed the issues relating to physical changes and developments that occurred at puberty, Prof. Schroeder was of the view that the passage between childhood and adulthood did not always take place in a distinct youth phase or adolescence and that it changes according to culture. Due to increasing disembodying and differentiation coupled with a high rate of unemployment, the gradual passage from adolescence to adulthood no longer exists.

Late modern Western societies could not cope with the increasing individualization subjecting the youth phase to further differentiation and disembodying. This has, in turn, created higher risks for identity development during youth.

The traditional supporting role played by the family in this process has now been taken over by peer groups and youth culture. Sometimes the present day youth resort to nationalism and idolization (in sports and music) creating a new risk factor for society. This tendency has redefined the traditional notion and consciousness on educational values and communal social life patterns and orientations.

Prof. Schroeder attributed this largely to the desire among the Youth to belong to a group which is manifested in Western societies in the form of renewed consciousness of the body. Although the sexuality has lost its allure and intimacy in life and everything seems to be obtainable and accessible in the media, the discovery of love and sexuality remains a vital aspect of Youth.

He also establishes the link between unemployment and the status of adulthood as the safety net of the family in Western working societies that are being replaced by an individual struggle for survival.

However, youth workers in Western societies such as in Germany have acquired an understanding of this need to accommodate and to engage youth in communal activities in order to fulfill the need for security by providing social space for young people with meeting places and for cultural activities.

Although this institutionalized youth work in Western countries, which is mainly active in the field of leisure, is hardly a role model for Sri Lanka, the experience gained in dealing with young people in late modernity would equally be instructive for institutions focused on educational and job-related measures to overcome poverty and discrimination.

However, he acknowledged the existence of certain collective traditions in certain societies that have, to some extent, mitigated the global trends caused by unbridled market forces and that they bear a potential for future economic and social development.

Indict Bulankulame of the University of Colombo has done a research on drinking among the urban middle class youth. Interestingly, she has focused on the drinking habit of the upper middle class youth who attend international schools and engage in an active night life. They also have the ability and leisure to sustain frequent socialization with their peer groups. Bulankulame has identified this particular segment of the youth as trendsetters appealing to youth across class differences.

Power relations among friends, opposite sex, pre-conceived notions such as 'drinking is great' have contributed largely to, the drinking habit among the youth. Five per cent of the children aged 12-19 who attend international schools consume alcohol. However, certain factors; cultural and behavioral patterns induce and reduce drinking habits among the Youth.

Social space for women

Rama Rao in her presentation observes the changes brought about by the mobile phone and the virtual space created by it among female students in Women's Colleges in growing cities like Bhopal in Central India.

She observes that the mobile phone and SMS has brought about a radical change in the lives of women students who perceived it as an extension of self, a very personal instrument. The conversations used are personal, intimate and long. The cellular phones created a space for women in a conservative society. It is a social space for freedom, creativity and a host of opportunities, specially offered by SMS.

Dr. Premakumara De Silva of University of Colombo attempts to identify emerging trends among youth pilgrims in the context of Sri Pada Pilgrimage. He identifies the youth pilgrims to the sacred mountain of Sri Pada as a separate sociological entity and attributes this importance to aspects of both ' secular ' and ' sacred' in understanding the pilgrim groups in general and youth pilgrims in particular.

In two case studies, Dr. Silva explores the motives and intentions of youth pilgrims belonging to lower and upper middle class and pleasurable and religious dimensions of these specific pilgrim groups.

The youth pilgrims though they bathed at 'Bopath Ella', a popular bathing place on the way to Sri Pada and consumed alcohol, when they entered the 'sacred area' they performed the traditional rituals and paid customary homage to Sri Pada. Dr. Premakumara acknowledged that little research has been done on 'religious' and 'secular 'aspects of these sites by the anthropologists working in the field.

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