Youth and generation in South African historiography

Professor Clive Glaser’s inaugural lecture will look at concepts of youth and generational conflict in the shaping of South African history.

Glaser will argue that generational conflict has been an important feature of our history since the 19th Century and continues to be so. Using an inter-generational lens, the lecture will focus on the origins of migrant labour, urban gangs and, finally, youth political organisation.

Generational conflict and expressions of youth identity usually manifest themselves in a-political forms (at least in the formal sense of politics.) Rather than taken as a given, explosions of mass-based youth politics therefore need to be understood in specific historical contexts.

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