Abstract:

This roundtable builds on the discussions raised at the 2024 HAB event Youth Cartographies: A Methodologies Workshop held at the French Institute of Pondicherry, India. It explored two key dimensions. 

The first focused on youth, bringing together interdisciplinary approaches to examine how their spatial practices intersect with identity formation and socio-political engagement in Southern urban contexts. The workshop investigated how youth used space as a site for expression, resistance, and identity construction, reflecting the complex interplay of caste, class, gender, and race. 

The second dimension emphasised cartographies as a tool for knowledge production, which highlights the experimental methods youth, communities, and researchers have mobilised. Namely, bodily performance, urban design, film, Indigenous cartographies, and walking. 

As this emerging field evolves, our presence at the Dakar Asia-Africa conference extended these discussions, bringing in new perspectives from Senegal, Brazil, and India to foster new ideas and collaborations illustrating the axis of knowledge across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Chair:

• Aarti Kawlra, Humanities Across Borders (HAB), International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Netherlands

Convenor:

• Min Tang, Tongji University, China

Participants:

• Rishuai Chen, African Studies Centre, Leiden University, Netherlands
• Alexandra Forman, URCA Institute, Brazil
• Murali Shanmugavelan, SOAS University of London, United Kingdom
• Ibrahima Niang, Institute of African and Asian Studies of Sahel, Senegal