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Songs from Sweden Shaping Pop Culture in a Globalized Music Industry Ola Johansson
Young People and Learning Processes in School and Everyday Life 1
Thomas Johansson
Marcus Herz
Youth Studies in Transition: Culture, Generation and New Learning Processes
Young People and Learning Processes in School and Everyday Life
Volume 1
Series editors
Emma Sorbring, Centre for Child and Youth Studies, University West, Trollhättan, Sweden
Thomas Johansson, Department of Education, Communication and Learning, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
Editorial board
Suha Al-Hassan, Emirates College for Advanced Education, Abu Dhabi, UAE & Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan
Louise Archer, Institute of Education, University College London, UK
Laura Di Giunta, Psychology Department, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
Chris Haywood, School of Arts and Cultures, Newcastle University, Newcastleupon–Tyne, UK
Liane Peña Alampay, Psychology Department, Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City, Philippines
Lisa Russell, The University of Huddersfield, UK
David Smahel, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Sylvana Sofkova Hashemi, Department of Pedagogical, Curricular and Professional Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
This book series provides analyses of contemporary issues and questions related to being young and becoming an adult in a global educational landscape. It examines education pathways in relation to characteristics of transitional processes that are part of this transformational and developmental process, as well as sociocultural aspects. It investigates areas such as education, everyday life, leisure time, family, subcultural affiliations, medialization, work and intimacy. The series highlights the following areas:
• Contemporary challenges in education and the educational system.
• Young people’s experiences and varying living conditions and its influence on academic performance.
• New emerging social and existential identities in relation to education.
• Challenges for education – Inclusion and exclusion in terms of risk behaviours, psychological distress and social unrest.
• Theoretical renewal and a conceptual adaption to education, and the societal and cultural challenges of contemporary school systems.
• Digitalisation, technology and media in modern education. Educational pathways for specific groups.
• Contextual challenges for educational ambitions, such as poverty, politics, war and exclusion of groups.
The series introduces ground-breaking interdisciplinary works in the area of education, challenging the orthodoxies in this field of research, and publishes works on the globalization of education. Furthermore, it introduces research on youth, thus advancing current knowledge on education in relation to the young person’s everyday life, nationalities, socio-economic backgrounds and living conditions. In addition, it presents new methodological and theoretical approaches to this research field.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15702
Thomas Johansson • Marcus Herz
Youth Studies in Transition:
Culture, Generation and New Learning Processes
Thomas Johansson Department of Education, Communication and Learning
University of Gothenburg Gothenburg, Sweden
Marcus Herz Department of Social Work Malmö University Malmö,
Sweden
ISSN 2522-5642
ISSN 2522-5650 (electronic)
Young People and Learning Processes in School and Everyday Life
ISBN 978-3-030-03088-9 ISBN 978-3-030-03089-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03089-6
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
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Preface
This book is the product of a long collaboration between the authors, who have both done extensive youth research in different fields. Thomas Johansson became involved in youth studies at the beginning of the 1990s. Since then he has published studies on young people’s sexuality and identity, bodybuilding and fitness, young migrants, and violence in schools. Over the years, he has met a number of the influential academics cited in this book, such as Anthony Giddens, Paul Gilroy, Paul Willis, Ann Phoenix, Mica Nava, Johan Fornäs, Ove Sernhede, Ien Ang, and Les Back. Some of them have become friends; others have had a direct or indirect influence on his academic writing, not least via their books and articles. Academic work can be a solitary pursuit, but it is also a product of social interaction and influences from intellectual networks. Marcus Herz first became involved in youth studies through his work as a social worker and then later as a researcher. He has researched and published on young people with regard to social exclusion, racism, gender, migration, music, and social work in general.
Gothenburg, Sweden Thomas Johansson Malmö, Sweden Marcus Herz September 2018
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank a number of our colleagues for their valuable input into this book, especially Jesper Andreasson, Chris Haywood, Philip Lalander, Dawan Raoof, and Paula Aracena.
About the Authors
Thomas Johansson, PhD, is Professor of Pedagogy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He has published extensively in the fields of youth studies, urban studies, the sociology of the family, social theory, and critical studies on men and masculinities. His most recent publication is The Conundrum of Masculinity: Hegemony, Homosociality, Homophobia and Heteronormativity (Routledge, 2018) (together with Chris Haywood, Marcus Herz, Nils Hammarén, and Andreas Ottemo) and Fatherhood in Transition. Masculinity, Identity and Everyday Life (Palgrave, 2017, with Jesper Andreasson). His most recent publication is Extreme Sports, Extreme Bodies: Gender Identities and Bodies in Motion (Palgrave, 2018, with Jesper Andreasson).
Marcus Herz, PhD, is Associate Professor of Social Work at Malmö University, Sweden. His research and publications include studies on social work, gender, masculinities, migration, and youth studies. His most recent publication is The Conundrum of Masculinity: Hegemony, Homosociality, Homophobia and Heteronormativity (Routledge, 2018) (together with Chris Haywood, Thomas Johansson, Nils Hammarén, and Andreas Ottemo).
Chapter 1 Introduction
Setting the Scene
Whereas the concept of adolescence is used within psychological and especially psychoanalytic theories, youth is a sociological category. In this study, we will primarily use the concept of youth. Adolescence as well as the period of youth have been described in many ways. Often young people are described in dramatic and colorful ways. In the psychoanalytical literature, adolescence is described as a period in life when young people have to solve the conflict between identity versus identity confusion (Erikson 1985). Erik H Erikson regarded adolescence as a crucial phase in life when the search for an identity was the primary focus of the individual. During adolescence, personal identity gradually takes shape and conflictual aspects of the self become integrated into a more coherent identity (Blos 1962). Although we are not primarily interested in the psychological aspects of this development, we are inspired by numerous psychologists’ attempts to understand and investigate the challenges inherent in growing up and becoming an adult person. Using the concept of youth, we are directing our focus towards the sociological aspects of being young in modern societies. However, we prefer to keep the focus on the tensions between the young person, the subject, and society.
So, why study young people? We will not try to propose that young people today live in a more uncertain time than, for example, their parents or grandparents, but we will argue that youth is an excellent period in life to study if we wish to acquire knowledge about societal and cultural transformations in our time. Interpreting youth and youth culture is one powerful way of approaching an understanding of historical transformations of ideas, categories, identities, and learning processes. Functioning as a relatively long and today even prolonged transition (Young adolescents) from childhood to adulthood, youth is an exemplary study object for anyone interested in how transitions are configured but are also constantly being reshaped and redefined in contemporary times.
T. Johansson, M. Herz, Youth Studies in Transition: Culture, Generation and New Learning Processes, Young People and Learning Processes in School and Everyday Life 1, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03089-6_1
1
“Youth studies” is in many ways a fractured field of enquiry. On the one hand, we have the divide between psychological studies on adolescence, and on the other hand, sociological studies on youth. To our knowledge, there are relatively few attempts to create bridges between these two camps. In addition, there is a divide between transition studies and cultural studies of youth in the sociological field of youth studies. At the same time, there is huge interest in empirical studies of young people today. In this book, we will argue that there is a need for a more integrated approach to youth studies. There are, of course, various ways of approaching such a delicate task. Our suggestion is that there is a need to create a symbolic and intellectual space for discussions on how to re-engage with the task of theorizing youth. The aim of this book and study is to create a platform for engaging in the intellectual challenges of theorizing and making sense of youth. We will elaborate further on this in the following sections.
Youth Studies & Theories of Youth
Youth and youth culture are sometimes seen as seismographs of social and cultural changes, alerting us to new subjectivities and societal transformations. There is therefore a close connection between youth, social theory, and modernization, or, as Paul Willis expresses it:
Youth are always among the first to experience, first hand, the problems and possibilities of the successive waves of technical and economic modernization sweeping through capitalist societies (Willis 2003, p. 391).
Consequently, according to this view, being able to read and interpret youth sharpens our eyes to ongoing social and cultural transformations. In Andy Furlong’s textbook Youth Studies (2013), we find a somewhat similar view on youth, social theory, and young people’s lives:
The examination of young people’s lives provides a unique window on processes of social and economic change and facilitates the exploration of some of the big theoretical concerns in social science (Furlong 2013, p. 5).
When reading these statements, it seems reasonable to expect that youth studies are a creative research field characterized by constant theoretical renewal and development. Concerns, however, have recently been expressed about the development of theory within this field of research. In particular, there seems to be a deadlock between two influential traditions: youth in transition and youth culture studies (France and Roberts 2015; MacDonald 1998). To our knowledge, there have been no serious attempts to develop a synthesis between these perspectives, although some researchers do address, identify and discuss the gap between the two perspectives to some extent (Bennett and Woodman 2015; Nayak and Kehily 2013). Paul Hodkinson (2015) has also addressed the need to create bridges between both subculture and post-subculture theory, as well as between the “transition” and “cultural” traditions within youth research. It is important to point out that much youth
research, of course, also runs outside the two more prevalent traditions (Geldens et al. 2011). In this book, however, we will focus mainly on the literature on youth studies that is influenced by sociological and cultural theories and perspectives.
In 2011, the relationship between the transitional and cultural perspectives was addressed in several contributions to the Journal of Sociology. According to Furlong et al. (2011), today there are clear signs of convergence between these two perspectives. The authors, however, also point out that: “as yet we do not have a conceptual framework that is accepted by those aligned to either tradition” (Ibid, p. 366). Although the ambition of bridging this gap in youth studies has increasingly attracted more attention, there is still an apparent lack of a commonly accepted theoretical foundation for youth studies. By this, of course, we mean common theoretical references, texts, debates, and research questions, rather than any general theory of youth. This lack of common reference points becomes evident when reading a recent volume on youth studies, Youth cultures, Transitions, and Generations. Bridging the Gap in Youth Research (Bennett and Woodman 2015). Although this volume is quite eclectic, no real attempts are made either to fuse the different traditions within youth studies or to make them meet and interact.
When reading textbooks on youth studies and browsing through journals such as Young, Youth and Society and Journal of Youth Studies, it is evident that the field of youth studies currently faces certain challenges, particularly with regard to its theoretical renewal and development. This is also reflected in several articles on the state of youth studies in general in, for example, the US, the Philippines, Turkey, and Colombia (Demir 2012; González and Pinilla 2012; Lanuza 2004; Maira and Soep 2004), or in Burundi and Rwanda (Philipps 2014). This critique, however, is not new; similar issues have, for instance, been raised in the UK (MacDonald 1998) and Australia (Wyn and White 1998). The desire for theoretical renewal and development is also reflected in the criticism that has been aimed at youth studies for years, such as the feminist critique that gender has traditionally been overlooked in youth research. This was evident both in youth transition studies (Wallace 1987) and in youth culture research (Griffin 1985). The focus in studies on youth transitions has been adapted as a result of this criticism, and studies with a gender perspective or where gender not class is the analytical departure point are today more common (Crompton 1999; Egerton and Savage 2000). A similar development has been occurring under the umbrella of youth culture studies, where, for instance, identity, subculture, and resistance among girls are more commonly studied (Sixtensson 2018; Skeggs 1997/2002). Although this shift is evident in the empirical work, however, it does not seem to have led to the same shift in the theoretical debate.
Even though the field of youth studies has often included a range of different experiences and identities, it has still received some critique for being both theoretically and empirically Eurocentric. This is apparent, for instance, in the literature on subcultures and resistance, and how it sometimes tends to overlook ethnic or racialized subcultures and instead highlights subcultures related to music or class (Zine 2000). Attention has similarly been drawn to the need to shift the focus of youth studies towards including new identities and pan-national agendas for young people (Faas 2007). This need is related to “new” identity projects aimed at youth, such as
the construction of a European identity emerging out of the European Union project and the increase in global migration. On the one hand, it is easy to partly dismiss this critique by pointing to existing research, such as much of the British and American research on youth culture, with its strong focus on immigrant youth and black youth culture. On the other hand, this critique encourages us to consider which theoretical concepts are being used and how they reflect different youth groups in different contexts. Examples would include concepts such as resistance, or the meaning of transitions in a global context, or the social and political contexts within which the empirical work is done.
Inspired by these ongoing discussions about the heritage of youth studies theory, the present book is mainly an exploratory and conceptually oriented study. It is designed to point to the routes that could be taken when continuing the work of finding fruitful and adequate ways of exploring and developing theories of youth and youth culture. Consequently, this book has three aims:
1. It explores the current state of some of the main theoretical approaches to youth studies. There are, of course, different ways of describing the development of youth studies theory. From a British perspective, there has been a longstanding distinction and separation between youth culture studies and studies of youth transitions (Furlong 2009; Furlong et al. 2011). There are both theoretical and methodological differences between these two approaches. Whereas youth cultural studies have primarily drawn on ethnographic and qualitative methodologies, studies of youth transitions have largely (though not solely) been based on large-scale quantitative research. In addition, youth cultural studies have introduced, modified and developed several key concepts, such as subcultures, resistance, style, moral panic, and diaspora. In contrast, the theoretical contribution from studies of youth transitions is less prominent. On the other hand, however, this tradition has contributed to valuable data and discussions about young people’s transitions and trajectories. We can also find similar tendencies towards separating perspectives in other countries, such as Sweden, not least because Swedish and Nordic researchers have been heavily influenced by British youth studies. In the past few decades, however, differences in perspectives and conceptual tools have gradually been reduced, and there are strong tendencies towards convergence between both traditions. In Sweden and Denmark, there was also a third position in the 1980s and 1990s, which was expressed mainly through modernity theory and the works of the German pedagogue Thomas Ziehe (1994). As we will see, there was a similar discussion among British researchers in the 1990s, mainly related to discussions within the study of youth transitions and its relation to modernity theory (Bynner 2001). Theories of modernity, such as those by Giddens, Beck, or Ziehe, have been used, celebrated and heavily criticized, but this perspective has survived and has continued to influence youth studies. Today we can also trace a renewed interest in theories of modernity in youth studies (see, for example, Nayak and Kehily 2013).
2. This book explores and investigates possible ways and routes to take to promote a renewal of the theoretical and conceptual development in youth studies. When
looking more closely at youth studies, it is apparent that the intensive discussion about theories and perspectives in the 1990s has gradually been pushed into the background in favor of empirical research. Few, if any, programmatic and theoretically oriented articles are to be found in the main youth studies journals. The number of conceptually oriented articles and contributions to the field is easily counted. Looking at the somewhat wider field of child and youth studies, we can find a similar development. In the 1980s and ’90s, there were frequent discussions about how to address, study, and theoretically frame the everyday life and subjectivities of children and young people in the Western hemisphere. Among other things, greater emphasis was placed on children’s and young people’s own experiences, voices, and subjectivities. Especially in child studies, there was a move from more naturalistic and naïve understandings of “the child” and childhood towards “the construction of childhood”. Youth studies were greatly influenced by Marxian and poststructuralist theories, contributing to both divergences and convergences between researchers. Over the past decade or so, there has hardly been any noticeable theoretical development within the field of youth studies. Many explanations for this can probably be found, and we will try to explore some of them in this book. We will also discuss the relationship between general social theory and the application and use of social theory within a specific field of research.
3. This book also provides several concrete examples of what such a theoretical renewal might look like. We will single out and discuss central concepts within this field of research. Our ambition is not only to present and address these concepts, but also to try to develop and renew them, successively constructing a framework that can be used to gain inspiration for doing contemporary youth studies.
In conclusion, a great amount of empirical work is currently being carried out in this field of research, but a large amount of this work shows a lack of theoretical reflection. Evidently, the second and third aims of the book will be the most difficult ones to achieve—making this an exploratory rather than a fully-fledged conceptual work. It is to be hoped that this book will provide a point of departure for a more theoretically oriented approach to youth studies. For youth studies to be strengthened as an interdisciplinary field of research, it is necessary to revitalize the discussion about the theoretical foundations of this field of study.
As this book is published in the Springer series Young People and Learning Processes in School and Everyday Life, we will focus in particular on the transitional processes throughout young people’s lives. We will not exclusively try to map out which concepts are needed to understand pedagogical processes, didactics or teaching in schools. Instead, we will bring in a broader and more sociological perspective on transitions and symbolic work among youth. Our ambition is to explore what possible theoretical landscapes we need to create and construct so that we are able to understand young people’s movements in time and space, and their aspirations in general.
This is primarily a theoretical and conceptual study. That is, we will not provide the reader with laborious surveys of research on different topics, such as youth and drugs, youth and sexuality, politics, etc. Nor will we discuss methods of youth research or methodological issues. This would move us too far from our primary aim with this book. In addition, there are already numerous sources available on sociological methods. Instead, our aim is to direct the reader’s attention to conceptual and theoretical developments in youth studies. We want to highlight the importance of theorizing youth. Of course, we are not trying to develop a grand theory of youth. However, we will try to engage with and hopefully also advance some of the theoretical discussions within youth studies. Finally, a word on how we use the term “youth studies”. We are aware that this is not a well-defined and easily discernible field of research. We will successively elaborate on what we include in “youth studies” and try to define what different theoretical traditions we include in our investigation.
Organization
The second chapter of this book, The Theoretical Landscape of Youth Studies, briefly presents and discusses three influential traditions in youth studies. Initially, we will discuss key concepts, such as youth, teenager, adolescence, and emerging adulthood. We will also discuss the status of the field of youth studies and its relationship to child and youth studies. Thereafter, three sections will present overviews of some of the most important works within the three selected theoretical traditions: youth culture research, youth transitions, and modernity theory. This chapter will set out the intellectual context of the book, creating a point of departure for the work that will be done to add some new impetus to the conceptual development of youth studies.
Chapter 3, Generations and New Subjectivities, focuses on the concept of generation and the long history of similar attempts to capture an age group and a specific cohort’s social and cultural consciousness. Starting with Mannheim’s classical concept of generations and generational units, we trace the discussion about generations and cohorts in various directions. For example, there are clear relationships between political projects and ambitions, as well as attempts to identify market segments among young people and the use of the concept of generation. In this chapter, we try to redefine and reestablish the concept, attaching it to discussions about class, gender, and intersectionality.
Chapter 4, Subcultures and Transitional Spaces, will recapitulate the theoretical discussion about subcultures and the strained relationship between subcultures and mainstream culture. We will introduce the concept of a transitional space in order to bring together concepts from transition theories and cultural studies. By reading transitions in relation to subcultures and styles, we will gain a more in-depth picture of what is taking place in transitional spaces. Although subcultures feed into the “common” culture, they are never totally absorbed; they continue to fascinate,
attract, and generate desire. Transitions are not merely about how young people navigate subculture and mainstream in terms of education, employment, and intimate relationships, but also the symbolic and cultural dimensions involved in identity work.
Chapter 5, Mediatization and Learning Processes, will direct our attention towards the media and young people’s consumption. We are primarily interested in what key concepts can help us untangle young people’s ways of relating to and using the media. Initially, we will focus on more general changes and transformations in society and in the media industry. The recent media revolution is described as being spectacular and decisive. We will, therefore, explore the acceleration thesis, and also connect to and discuss the concept of mediatization. We will explore how acceleration, mediatization, and generational changes can be tied together. A key concept in this book is learning processes. Is it possible to talk about new learning processes today, and what is the relationship between these processes and school, as well as between learning processes and the rest of life?
Chapter 6, The Body, the Care of the Self, and Habitus, will explore the notion of plastic and transformable bodies. Using a wide range of examples, such as fitness, plastic surgery, and the makeover culture, we will explore the contemporary body project. A key question is also how education, class, and contemporary learning processes are helping to shape how young people relate to their bodies. Within youth studies, there is largely an absence of well-developed conceptual frameworks that focus on the lived body. Recent textbooks on youth studies rarely contain any sections on how to theorize the body, nor any sections on embodiment and the lived body. This chapter will contribute to bringing bodies and knowledge of their physicality into youth studies.
Chapter 7, Postcolonial Spaces, discusses the impact of postcolonialism on youth studies. It especially focuses on how young people’s lives are affected by racialization and the social constructions of race, but also on how research on youth has traditionally been criticized for ignoring those race relations, ethnicity, and power relations. The chapter discusses and exemplifies these questions by using several points of departure, both theoretical and empirical, in relation to the three theoretical branches of youth research. For instance, are concepts such as “being stopped” and different processes of “othering” being used both to put theories of youth culture and transitions into motion and to further develop how we approach learning in young people’s everyday lives.
Chapter 8, Youth Studies, Theory, and Everyday Life in Motion, brings the previous chapters together and further develops some of the examples used from these chapters by using Giddens’ discussion about double hermeneutics in the discussions about youth and theory. Giddens shows how the conceptual tools and perceptions used in social theory are gradually implemented in everyday life. Concepts and knowledge produced in scientific contexts seep into everyday life and become part of the meaning-making process. In this chapter, we will look more closely at how these translation processes contribute to constructing theoretical landscapes and conceptual tools in youth studies. By discussing the concepts of “girl power” and “young men as a problem”, as well as digital natives and unaccompanied youth, we
will discuss the problems of contributing to stereotypical uses of conceptual tools involved in youth research.
Chapter 9 draws together and elaborates on the theoretical discussions in the different chapters. Although we do not aim to construct a solid theoretical position, we hope to contribute to a more vitalized exploration of theorizing in youth studies.
References
Bennett, A., & Woodman, D. (2015). Youth cultures, transitions, and generations. Bridging the gap in youth research. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Blos, P. (1962). On adolescence. A psychoanalytic interpretation. New York: The Free Press.
Bynner, J. (2001). British youth transition in comparative perspective. Journal of Youth Studies, 4(1), 5–23.
Crompton, R. (1999). Restructuring gender relations and employment: The decline of the male breadwinner. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Demir, I. (2012). The development and current state of youth research in Turkey: An overview. Young, 20(1), 89–114.
Egerton, M., & Savage, M. (2000). Age stratification and class formation: A longitudinal study on the social mobility of young men and women, 1971–1991. Work, Employment and Society, 14, 23–49.
Erikson, W. H. (1985). The life cycle completed. A review. New York: W & W Norton & Company. Faas, D. (2007). Youth, Europe and the nation: The political knowledge, interests and identities of the new generation of European youth. Journal of Youth Studies, 10(2), 161–181.
France, A., & Roberts, S. (2015). The problem of social generations: A critique of the new emerging orthodoxy in youth studies. Journal of Youth Studies, 18(2), 215–230.
Furlong, A. (red.) (2009). Handbook of youth and young adulthood. New perspectives and agendas. London: Routledge.
Furlong, A. (2013). Youth studies. An introduction. London: Routledge.
Furlong, A., Woodman, D., & Wyn, J. (2011). Changing times, changing perspectives. Reconciling ‘transition’ and ‘cultural’ perspectives on youth and young adulthood. Journal of Sociology, 47(4), 355–370.
Geldens, P., Lincoln, S., & Hodkinson, P. (2011). Youth. Journal of Sociology, 47(4), 347–353. González, G. M., & Pinilla, V. E. (2012). Youth studies in Colombia. State of the art. Young, 20(4), 399–414.
Griffin, C. (1985). Typical girls? Young women from school to the job market. London: Routledge. Hodkinson, P. (2015). Youth cultures and the rest of life: Subcultures, post-subcultures and beyond. Journal of Youth Studies, 19(5), 629–645.
Lanuza, G. (2004). The theoretical state of Philippine youth studies. Young, 12(4), 357–376. MacDonald, R. (1998). Youth, transitions and social exclusion: Some issues for youth research in the UK. Journal of Youth Studies, 1(2), 163–176.
Maira, S., & Soep, E. (2004). United States of adolescence? Reconsidering US youth culture studies. Young, 12(3), 245–269.
Nayak, A., & Kehily, M. J. (2013). Gender, youth & culture. Global masculinities and femininities Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
Philipps, J. (2014). Dealing with diversity: African youth research and the potential of comparative approaches. Journal of Youth Studies, 17(10), 1362–1377. Taylor & Francis.
Sixtensson, J. (2018). Härifrån till framtiden. Om gränslinjer, aktörskap och motstånd i tjejers vardagsliv. Malmö: Malmö University.
Skeggs, B. (1997/2002). Formations of class and gender. Becoming respectable. London: Sage. Wallace, C. (1987). For richer, for poorer: Growing up in and out of work. London: Tavistock.
Willis, P. (2003). Foot soldiers of modernity: The dialectics of cultural consumption and the 21st century. Harvard Educational Review, 73, 390–415.
Wyn, J., & White, R. (1998). Young people, social problems and Australian youth studies. Journal of Youth Studies, 1(1), 23–38.
Ziehe, T. (1994). From living standard to life style. Young, 2(2), 2–16.
Zine, J. (2000). Redefining resistance: Towards an Islamic subculture in schools. Race Ethnicity and Education, 3(3), 293–316.
Chapter 2 The Theoretical Landscape of Youth Studies
Introduction
In the 1930s, researchers of the Chicago school focused on young people as a part of their studies on more general transformations of the urban landscape. Many of these classical studies focused on criminal careers, gangs, and social problems. One of the most well-known of these early youth studies is Fredrick M. Trasher’s study The Gang. A Study of 1331 Gangs in Chicago (1927). It is an ambitious investigation into the criminal gangs in Chicago at the time, focusing on urban transformation, segregation, and poverty. Although this study provides the reader with a map and some understanding of how the gangs of Chicago were structured, there is a lack of more in-depth studies of the youngsters themselves. We do not get to know any young men or women and listen to their voices. They are silent.
There are, however, exceptions to this rule. In 1930, Clifford Shaw published The Jack Roller, an extensive case study of a delinquent young boy called Stanley. Stanley’s story is, of course, interpreted and written by Shaw. At the same time, the text is not burdened with any extensive theoretical elaborations or conceptual attempts to interpret Stanley’s life story. Such case studies are actually quite rare in the academic literature. There have been numerous discussions about Shaw’s methodology and his way of telling Stanley’s story, but the book is a classic and it also gives voice to a person who had otherwise been forgotten (Gelsthorpe 2007).
In 1944, the concept of the teenager was introduced in the US (Savage 2008). Initially, this term was coined to describe an age segment of the population oriented towards consumption and popular culture. The concept was popular among advertisers and companies targeting young people and their desire to consume clothes, fashion, music, and other products. The story of the teenager and later on the adolescent society, a term developed by the American sociologist James Coleman, was the beginning of more sociological interest in young people as consumers (Coleman 1961). As early as in the 1950s, for example, the famous sociologist Talcott Parsons
T. Johansson, M. Herz, Youth Studies in Transition: Culture, Generation and New Learning Processes, Young People and Learning Processes in School and Everyday Life 1, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03089-6_2
described young people as an age group that prioritized consumption and leisure activities (Parsons 1951). This sociological literature also helped to construct the notion of teenagers as consumers and as a homogenous age group and generation.
The works of Parsons and Coleman partly contributed to the myth that youth culture was born in post-war society. In contrast, Jon Savage (2008), for example, argues that the youth Cultural Revolution of the 1950s and ’60s is not that innovative and new at all, and shows that similar trends already existed in the nineteenth century. The desire to challenge adult society and to develop new styles and cultural expressions runs like a red thread through the end of the nineteenth century and into the early decades of the 20th. Savage singles out several early youth cultures, such as the flappers, young American bohemian women in the 1920s. Flappers were recognizable from their short hair, short skirts, and bohemian style, as they listened to jazz music and danced at bars. This was an early version of the modern woman, with influences from such figures as Zelda Fitzgerald. In a similar vein, Luis Alvarez (2008) singles out an American male youth culture called zoot suit in the US of the 1940s. This style featured strong colors and fancy suits and was popular among black people and Mexicans. Sociologically, this style and youth culture can be interpreted as a protest against the extensive racial prejudices and discrimination prevalent in the US at that time.
In the 1970s, the dominant theories of youth and youth culture were challenged by British researchers at the Contemporary Centre of Cultural Studies in Birmingham (CCCS). Against the background of economic recession in much of the 1970s and ’80s, and the new political regime of Margaret Thatcher, the researchers focused on youth culture and young people’s ways of trying to understand their roles in society and to resist the right-wing government. Rather than treating youth as a homogenous category, the focus was redirected towards class and gender differences and racialization. We will shortly look more closely at some of the central texts produced by key researchers at the CCCS.
In an increasingly more complex and uncertain society, it becomes important to be able to navigate and orient oneself in relation to social systems such as the school and the labor market. Another dominant conceptual tradition in youth studies, the transition school, attempts to elaborate on young people’s transitions and ways of navigating in time and space. The roots of this tradition are somewhat vague, but Erikson’s theory of the life cycle and Glen Elder’s life course theory have strongly influenced its development. The changing economic and social conditions that characterize late modern societies also create challenges in terms of understanding young people’s trajectories and lifestyles. This tradition took shape concurrently with the development in Birmingham but was more widely spread geographically and more deeply rooted in classical sociology.
In the 1990s, the focus moved from class differences, unemployment, and patriarchy towards subjectivity and creativity. Instead of talking about stratified societies, inequalities, and class, other topics such as individualization and lifestyle differentiation came into fashion. Modernity theory pointed towards new subjectivities and emotional structures. There was a strong focus on how society was changing at a fast pace, bringing the lives of young people into focus. On the one hand,
“old” traditions and hierarchies were changing; on the other hand, this meant that people, especially young people, had to be able to navigate a changing and more uncertain society by themselves as well as become responsible for the choices they made.
In the last couple of decades, however, the focus has returned to material conditions and to an intersectional analysis of stratification patterns and different forms of segregation and processes of exclusion and repression. It has perhaps been difficult to find empirical evidence in the everyday lives of young people for some of the more utopian ideas from modernity theory. The focus of youth studies has returned to power relationships, racism, sexism, segregation, poverty, and similar conditions. Concurrently, research has also focused on Big Data, with the access it provides to more data on more people, to extract more statistics on young people, along with discussions about what such data provides and the dangers of accessing and using it.
In this chapter, we will look more closely at these three theoretical strands within youth studies. The CCCS is the easiest to describe and elaborate on, not at least because numerous studies and textbooks exist on this particular intellectual tradition. In contrast, transition and modernity theory are harder to grasp and describe. Both these intellectual traditions have a great affinity with general social theory and thinking, and therefore also have a vaguer doctrinal history within youth studies. These three theoretical perspectives or traditions can be interpreted as three different answers to social transformations from the 1970s and onwards, especially in Western societies. Our ambition is also to read them in this way and to try both to identify possibilities and potentials and to criticize and redefine some of the central concepts within these theories.
We will begin with the CCCS and then move to transition theory, and finally look more closely at modernity theory. This chapter will also form the point of departure for the work done in the rest of the chapters, when we will try to move this field of research towards the future.
Youth Culture
In the 1970s and ’80s, The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) did important academic work on youth culture, especially via a strong focus on styles, subcultures, taste, resistance, and signifying practices. The groundbreaking work performed within this “school” has had a considerable influence on international youth studies (Burke and Sunley 1998; Dimitriadis 2008; Dolby and Rizvi 2008).
Influential academics, such as Richard Hoggart, who was the first director of the Centre, and Raymond Williams, established the direction of the CCCS (Connell and Hilton 2016). There were, of course, strong influences from the left and from Marxian studies. In the reading groups, the students also studied labeling theory, the Chicago school, and the new criminology. Gradually, there were also strong influences from poststructuralist philosophy and post-Marxian theories. Also characteristic of the work conducted at the Centre were the broad approaches, rang-
ing from studies on popular culture and style to politics and transformations in society.
The work of the CCCS researchers contains many key ideas about the relationship between generations, the dynamics of production and consumption, and how styles can be interpreted as symbolic and ritualistic methods of resistance. When reading such classic work, it is obvious that there is a strong focus not only on culture and symbolism but also on the dynamic relationships between different generations and between subcultures and the dominant culture in society. More specifically:
Subcultures, then, must first be related to the ‘parent cultures’ of which they are a sub-set. But sub-cultures must also be analysed in terms of their relation to the dominant culture— the overall disposition of cultural power in the society as a whole (Hall and Jefferson 1976/1993, p. 13).
A classic example of a study conducted in this spirit is Learning to Labour: Why Working Class Children Get Working Class Jobs (1977). In his study of how young men are socialized into masculinity, British scholar Paul Willis shows how contempt for the “other” helps to keep the group together and to create sustainable social relationships. The teenage working-class boys in the study revolt against the middle-class school culture and the teachers who are attempting to discipline and punish them. This revolt involves not only a struggle against the predominant culture at the school but also the development of a fragile and exaggerated feeling of superiority. The following excerpt from Willis’ book reflects these young men’s construction of boundaries in relation to the “other”:
PW: (…) Why not be like the ear’oles, why not try and get CSEs?
-: They don’t get any fun, do they?
Derek: Cos they’m prats like, one kid he’s got on his report now, he’s got five As and one B.
-: Who’s that?
Derek: Birchall.
Spanksy: I mean, what will they remember of their school life? What will they have to look back on? Sitting in a classroom, sweating their bollocks off, you know, while we’ve been …. I mean look at the things we can look back on, fighting the Pakis, fighting on the Jas (i.e. Jamaicans). Some of the things we’ve done on teachers, it’ll be a laff when we look back on it (Willis 1977, p. 14).
Here we see in a condensed form how these young men are trying hard to construct a convincing identity. They use the geeks and teachers to symbolize and embody the middle-class school culture. Through jokes, sarcasm and mischief, the young men transform the legitimate school culture into something reprehensible. Group solidarity and male identity are created at the cost of respect for teachers, immigrants, and women. When the young men use the word “cunt”, they also place themselves in a sexist gender order in which this term for the female genitalia is used to show contempt for the geeks’ unmanly behavior. Designations for the feminine are used to indicate what “the lads” do not wish to be. For young working-class men at this time, during the 1970s, the transition to manhood and adulthood was inextricably
tied in with the movement from school to work. During the post-war period, stretching well into the 1970s, manual and often also monotonous factory work was regarded as a way of getting a regular wage, regular hours, and a stable and secure life. Thus, the transition from school to work functioned quite smoothly, and it was often quite unproblematic. Willis shows how the school is preparing the young boys for work, both in an implicit and explicit way. At this time, industrial employment meant having a secure position as a breadwinner, and it also worked to boost a traditional hard and tough masculinity.
However, this was all to change in the 1980s and ’90s. De-industrialization and a changing labor market, with a shrinking industrial sector and an expanding service sector, together with the rapid increase of lowly paid, insecure and low-status jobs, led to a transition from learning to labor to learning to serve (Nayak and Kehily 2013). Recently, there has also been a development towards new class stratifications in Western societies, whereby there is a large and growing group of young people who are not in employment, education, or training (NEETs). Reflecting on his text on the 25th anniversary of the publication of Learning to Labour, Willis makes several interesting reflections on societal changes (Willis 2004). His main points all concern the changing conditions and position of the British working class, especially young people. He writes: “Taken together, the new customer service call centers and the hotel and catering industries now employ more than double the number of workers as the old ‘smokestack’ industries—cars, shipbuilding, steel, engineering, coal mining” (p, 182). He also singles out the dangers of growing prejudices and ethnic conflicts:
Economic leveling, especially in the light of renewed ethnic confidence among non-Whites, brings a whole set of visible comparative and relational issues: cultural questions of otherness and difference, similarity and solidarity, for identities no longer resting on what they took unconsciously to be categorical, historical and economic advantages. Now they are revealed to be similarly subjected to the much larger relations of subordination that always trapped those on whom they so recently looked down (Willis 2004, p, 184).
The postindustrial restructuring of society and social relations has profound consequences not only for the transition from school to work but also for social relations and society at large. In recent years, this development indicated by Willis has further intensified, with the introduction of so-called “sharing companies” such as Uber and Lyft pushing young people into insecure, precariat jobs (Standing 2016). In many Western societies, young people have increasing difficulties establishing themselves on the labor market, getting somewhere to live, and building a sustainable life.
While young boys were socialized into positions as breadwinners and a tough masculinity in the 1970s, young girls learnt how to become subordinated to men and to fear public spaces. Young working-class girls learned how to dress “decently” to avoid sexual harassments. In a similar way as Willis, Christina Griffin (1985) studied young working-class women’s transitions from school to work. She also analyzed how young girls developed an internalized sexism, that is, how the girls adjusted to certain norms and regulations when it comes to behavior, clothes, and movements in public spaces. Distinctions between morally “bad” and “good” girls
served to socialize young girls into subordinated positions. This kind of moral education seems to reproduce certain class-based patterns; at the same time, these reproductive processes also change and take new forms.
In Formations of Class & Gender: Becoming Respectable (1997/2002) Beverly Skeggs develops a theory of respectability based on an ethnographic study of 83 white working-class women in the northwest of England. The study was conducted at the end of the 1990s, when British society had already been restructured into a postindustrial and neoliberal landscape. Although not affiliated with the CCCS, Skeggs positions herself within this tradition.
It is a part of the British Cultural Studies tradition in that theoretical, methodological and political concerns are worked through empirical understandings and that careful attention is paid to the historical legacies which inform contemporary representations. The book draws on a range of cultural and feminist theorists to engage with the lived experience of how the women inhabit different social positions and cultural representations (Skeggs 1997/2002, p.2).
Skeggs met the women at the beginning of the 1980s. Opportunities for unqualified labor on the local labor market were drastically curtailed during this time. The women were 16 years old at that time and Skeggs followed them more or less systematically for 11 years. Initially, she met the women while they were doing a course in caring. By considering themselves as practical, caring, and predisposed to taking care of other people, these women developed a sense of responsibility, duty, and respectability. At the same time, they were often cynical about the courses and their future careers. One interesting result of the investigation was that these working-class women did not want to pass as working class, but rather as middle class. Through investments in clothes, consumption, and their homes, they were striving to become middle class and respectable. At the same time, they were also haunted by their working-class backgrounds and habitus.
The women were excluded from positions in the labour market, the education system, from forms of cultural capital and from trading arenas. They were delegitimated through associations of non-respectability. The way class was experienced was through affectivity, as a ‘structure of feeling’ (Skeggs 1997/2002, p, 162).
Skeggs describes how the lack of opportunities and alternatives was one of the central mechanisms and features of these women’s living conditions. All in all, these women were unlikely to pursue higher education, and their lives continued being defined by necessity and hard work. At the same time, their subjectivities were characterized by disidentification and the desire to transgress their class position. Skeggs’ study can be read as an example of transitions from school to work in 1980s Britain. The object of the study, however, lies not in the actual movements through space and time—getting a job, family life, and eventually adulthood—but rather the focus is on the cultural symbolic and subjective level.
In another classic work, There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack (1987), Paul Gilroy explores the institutionalization of “race” and racism in the British society. Although the book does not deal exclusively with young black people’s situation in
Britain, it contributes to redirecting the focus to issues of segregation, “race”, class, and racism. In brief, the study explores the widespread racist sentiments in British society in the 1980s. Through an investigation of black culture and popular music, Gilroy also highlights possibilities of challenging and transgressing racist sentiments and naturalized conceptions of culture and ethnicities.
Culture is not a fixed and impermeable feature of social relations. Its forms change, develop, combine and are dispersed in historical processes. The syncretic cultures of black Britain exemplify this. They have been able to detach cultural practice from their origins and use them to found and extend the new patterns of metacommunication which give their community substance and collective identity (Gilroy 1987, p. 294).
According to Gilroy, young black people born, raised, and schooled in Britain are British, but the meaning of being British also changes and transforms into something different while also adapting to the black diaspora. Young people’s selfdefinition and identities are heavily influenced by non-European elements and influences from black people’s struggles in Afro-America and the Caribbean. Black youth define and represent themselves in a syncretic way, trying hard to resist and struggle against racial subordination.
From the 1990s onwards, cultural studies has become an international discipline, and youth culture is merely one of its many areas of interest. However, if we look more closely at theoretical developments, we can see influences from feminism, post-colonial studies, social theory and critical theory (Nayak and Kehily 2013). The study of different cultural expressions, especially in the media and on the Internet and filtered and read through intersections of gender identity, age, class, ethnicity, and space, seems to be a defining feature of contemporary cultural studies (Martin 2009; Robards and Bennett 2011; Shildrick and MacDonald 2006; Zajc 2015). Youth culture studies also has its very own doctrinal history, and numerous textbooks present the grand narrative of the Birmingham School and of scholars such as Stuart Hall, Paul Willis, Paul Gilroy, Angela McRobbie, and Lawrence Grossberg (Turner 1992). The youth research conducted at the Centre has frequently been criticized, including for its lack of a gender perspective, excessive focus on class, and its Marxian approach to the study of culture (see, for example, McDonald 2001). However, the center has also answered to the critique, and successively redefined its positions.
Today, cultural studies have developed in many directions, and crucial differences also exist between how this field is defined and positioned in different countries. It is difficult today to discern a center or a group of researchers that heavily defines youth culture research. This does not mean that it is impossible to talk of a “tradition”. Rather, we can see a development that in many ways resembles that of the other two traditions in youth studies, with youth culture research being a more specific sub-field that is tightly linked to the more general approach of contemporary conceptual movements in cultural studies. This means, for example, that the concept of intersectionality is central to contemporary youth culture research.
Youth in Transition
Studies of youth in transition have focused mainly on general transitions from childhood to adulthood, particularly in relation to changing educational systems and labor markets. Following theories of reproduction and class, this perspective has mainly studied different careers, life patterns, and trajectories. There are many overlaps between youth culture research and transition research. The works of Skeggs and Willis on young people’s pathways and transitions from school to work could easily fit into transition research. The line between the two traditions is not always easy to draw. One example is Richard Jenkins study of working-class youth in Belfast, Lads, Citizens and Ordinary Kids: Working-class Youth Life-styles in Belfast. Published in 1983, the study is in many ways parallel to Learning to Labour. Jenkins investigated young people’s lifestyles and transitions from school to work in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Instead of focusing on subcultures and the more expressive and visible pupils in the school, Jenkins looks more closely at three lifestyles. He distinguishes between the lads, the ordinary kids, and the citizens. This classification ranges on a continuum from the “rough” to the “respectable”. The lads often have criminal records and possess few or no educational qualifications. The ordinary lads are less likely to have unskilled jobs and have no issues with the law. The citizens marry quite late and succeed better in education and get more-qualified jobs. In contrast to Willis, Jenkins singles out these workingclass kids’ individualism, which can be interpreted as a part of an ongoing erosion of a more collective working-class ethos.
In the 1990s, the discussions about modernity, reflexivity and new subjectivities also greatly influenced the work on youth transitions. This becomes very clear when reading the work of Robert MacDonald, for example.
To conclude, it would seem that these issues—of social exclusion and inclusion and the longer-term consequences of extended youth transitions, of the changing labour market and the growing informality and destandardization of work, of the impact of post-industrialism and postmodernism upon youth culture, and of the alleged growth of welfare dependent underclass—are ones which might usefully inform a new youth research in the UK (MacDonald 1998, p.173).
To tackle the changing conditions of education, the labor market, and young people’s trajectories, researchers on transition have taken different paths. For a while, there were strong influences from modernity theory and from Giddens and Beck’s conceptual landscapes, emphasizing individualization, reflexivity, selfidentity, and the partial deconstruction of class.
Recently, there have been an intense discussion about the relationship between the new orthodoxy of generation and Marxian and structural theories of class and production. There has also been recurrent criticism of the 1990s discourse on modernity, which highlights many of its shortcomings, not least with regard to analyzing the continuing impact of class, gender, ethnicity, and life chances in people’s lives (France and Haddon 2014; France and Roberts 2015; Woodman and Wyn
2015). This discussion has also been summarized and analyzed by Andy Furlong and Fred Cartmel:
In our view: late modernity involves an essential continuity with the past: economic and cultural resources are still central to an understanding of differential life chances and experiences (Furlong and Cartmel 2007, p.138)
Talking about the epistemological fallacy, the authors want to direct our attention towards the growing disjuncture in the literature between objective and subjective dimensions of social life. Underlying class differences are gradually obscured and made invisible. The thesis of individualization tends, in the worst scenario, to produce an ideological understanding of society. Although class and gender differences continue to shape people’s life chances, attention is given to individual choices and opportunity structures. According to the authors, biographical projects are not freefloating but instead structured by class, ethnicity and gender.
Instead of turning towards cultural studies and trying to incorporate some of the theoretical achievements of this intellectual strand, attempts have instead been made to refresh transition theory using the concept of generation or transition regimes (Purhonen 2016; Walther 2006). Instead of claiming the priority of class and stability, youth transition researchers are turning their attention towards the ongoing transformation of young people’s lives, living conditions, and the existential situation in contemporary societies. For example:
We wish to add however that if the field of youth studies is to be a site where these questions are asked thoroughly and reflexively, it is a mistake to predefine class, or gender and race, as processes that remain stable. Institutional arrangements adjust, politics is played, politics are changed, and people actively draw on unequal resources to maintain and recreate distinctions and advantages over others in the face of conditions that change over time (Woodman and Wyn 2015, p. 1408).
Although these authors point to the destabilization of social and cultural positions such as class, gender, and “race”—thereby offering a point of convergence between transition theories and cultural studies—they do not take any further steps in this direction.
Johanna Wyn provides an interesting approach to transition studies in several publications. She does so by merging transition studies with different theoretical approaches to youth studies and by putting youth studies into a context, for instance their relationship to a public discourse about “social problems” (Furlong et al. 2011; Wyn and White 1996, 1998). This makes it somewhat difficult to pin her position down to only one theoretical tradition. In terms of transition, however, Wyn considers youth to be a social process. Everyday youth existence and different social locations are formed by broader societal divisions.
It is our view that young people negotiate their own futures, lives and meanings, but they do so in the context of specific social, political and economic circumstances and processes. However, much of the analysis provided in contemporary youth research still tends to ignore this complexity, either emphasizing the deterministic nature of social life or relying on a voluntaristic conception of youth. We suggest that a third option, a ‘contextual’ model of young people's agency, is useful, but has yet to be developed fully (Wyn and White 1998, p.25).
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of A biographical memoir of the late Dr. Walter Oudney, Captain Hugh Clapperton, both of the Royal Navy, and Major Alex. Gordon Laing, all of whom died amid their active and enterprising endeavours to explore the interior of Africa
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Title: A biographical memoir of the late Dr. Walter Oudney, Captain Hugh Clapperton, both of the Royal Navy, and Major Alex. Gordon Laing, all of whom died amid their active and enterprising endeavours to explore the interior of Africa
Author: Thomas Nelson
Release date: November 23, 2023 [eBook #72209]
Language: English
Original publication: Edinburgh: Waugh and Innes, 1830
Credits: Galo Flordelis (This file was produced from images generously made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF THE LATE DR. WALTER OUDNEY, CAPTAIN HUGH CLAPPERTON, BOTH OF THE ROYAL NAVY, AND MAJOR ALEX. GORDON LAING, ALL OF WHOM DIED AMID THEIR ACTIVE AND ENTERPRISING ENDEAVOURS TO EXPLORE THE INTERIOR OF AFRICA ***
ROUTE OF Major Denham, Captn Clapperton and Dr . Oudney, in AFRICA.
(Large-size)
A
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR
OF THE LATE
DR. WALTER OUDNEY, AND
CAPTAIN HUGH CLAPPERTON,
BOTH OF THE ROYAL NAVY, AND
MAJOR ALEX. GORDON LAING,
ALL OF WHOM DIED AMID THEIR ACTIVE AND ENTERPRISING ENDEAVOURS
TO
EXPLORE THE INTERIOR OF AFRICA BY THE REV. THOMAS NELSON, M.W.S.
EDINBURGH: WAUGH AND INNES; WHITTAKER, TREACHER, & CO LONDON
M DCCC XXX
Edinburgh: Printed by A. Balfour & Co. Niddry Street.
TO ROBERT JAMESON, ESQ.
PROFESSOR OF NATURAL HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH,
This small Volume is respectfully inscribed by the Author, as a token of gratitude for his kindness to himself, as a Memorial of the friendship and patronage extended by him to the Gentlemen, the incidents of whose lives it records, and as a Testimony of the estimation in which his character is held for his assiduous cultivation of Physical Science in all its branches, and for his unwearied, enlightened, and generous efforts to inspire, not only the Students of his class, but the Public at large, with a love for the study of Nature.
PREFACE.
T materials whence the following biographical memoirs of the two young men who were knit together in friendship, and whose adventurous enthusiasm led them into the dangerous situation in which their lives were terminated, have been drawn entirely from private and authentic sources of information. The author had the satisfaction of being personally acquainted with both the travellers, before they went to Africa, and had, in consequence, the best opportunities of learning the facts and circumstances of the previous part of their lives. But the present publication, of which they are the subject, owes its origin to an incidental conversation which he had with Dr. James Kay, R.N. the intimate friend both of Oudney and Clapperton. Dr. Kay not only had stored up in his memory many curious incidents and anecdotes of his friends, which he communicated freely, but he had in his possession a number of letters from them both, received before and after they had commenced their exploratory expedition. All these letters, with a variety of other documents relative to them and their affairs, were readily imparted to the author, to make whatever use of them his judgment and discretion might dictate. When he had resolved on publication, he mentioned his design to Professor Jameson, who, he was aware, had been instrumental in getting both our travellers appointed to the mission, in the accomplishment of which they went to Africa. The Professor not only approved of the design, but afforded the author essential service in its execution, by putting into his possession a file of letters from Dr. Oudney, written during the prosecution of his African expedition, and addressed, some of them to the Professor, and the rest of them to the traveller’s eldest sister. Professor Jameson, likewise, mentioned a number of interesting particulars relative chiefly to the arrangements of the expedition, and the views of the gentlemen by whom it was undertaken. The author
is farther indebted for a part of his information to Lieutenant Sheriff, R.N. who had lived in habits of the closest intimacy with Captain Clapperton, during a series of years, and had become well acquainted with his history. Dr. Kay, moreover, applied to Mr. Anderson, formerly a resident in the West Indies, afterwards in Edinburgh, and now in the vicinity of Birmingham, also one of Captain Clapperton’s friends, to communicate what he recollected of him worthy being made public; and in reply he sent a letter, which was also given to the author, containing many valuable facts relating to an important period of Clapperton’s life; and stating the dates and particulars of a great part of his public career as an officer in the Navy, as well as mentioning a number of incidents, sentiments, and conduct, illustrative of his character as a private individual. These are the materials out of which the following narratives have been composed, and while, it is hoped, they will have the effect of preserving the memory of two interprising men who sacrificed their lives in the discharge of their duty, from being lost in oblivion, they will, at the same time, serve to assure the reader, that he may safely repose the most unlimited confidence in the accuracy of their details.
After both the memoirs had been composed, and indeed printed in a different form to that in which they now appear—a circumstance which will account for the frequent use of the editorial —the Author had the good fortune to meet with Captain Clapperton’s sister, from whom he received some valuable information respecting the early part, especially, of her adventurous and lamented brother’s life. In consequence of this accession of materials, he has been enabled to correct several passages, and greatly to enrich his narrative. And now he begs leave to offer his cordial thanks to that lady, as well as to all the gentlemen mentioned above, to whom he has been so much indebted.
With regard to the Memoir of Major Laing, the Author of those of Oudney and Clapperton must disclaim both the merit and the responsibility. It was compiled from a variety of previously published notices of that gentleman, who like many others met an early grave in the interior of the African continent. As, however, he was the countryman of the other two travellers, and met his death while
engaged in the discharge of similar duties, as well as nearly about the same time, the accompanying notice of his career seems to form a suitable companion to the narratives in which theirs are recorded.
CONTENTS.
DR. OUDNEY’S LIFE.
D . O ’s birth, enters Edinburgh University, passes as Surgeon, enters the Royal Navy, 3 Put on half-pay, 4 Returns to Edinburgh, 5 Practises as Surgeon, 6 Appointed member of expedition to explore the interior of Africa, 9 Letter from London on the eve of his departure, 10 Letter from Malta, 11 Two letters from Tripoli, 12 Letter from Tripoli, 16 Letter from Gardens, near Tripoli, 18 Letter from Mourzuk, 19 Ditto, 20 Ditto, to Professor Jameson, 22 Letter from Mourzuk, 25 Letter to Professor Jameson from Mourzuk, 27 Letter from Mourzuk, 30—Letter from Gatroni, 31—letter from Kuka, kingdom of Bornou, 32— Letter from Kuka, 34—Sets forward to Soudan, 36—Falls ill at Katagum, letter from Captain Clapperton to Mr. Consul Warrington from Kano, giving an account of his illness and death, 37.
CAPTAIN CLAPPERTON’S LIFE.
I remarks, 45 His parentage, 48 Birth, education, youthful adventures, embraces the sea service, 52 Promoted to be a midshipman in his majesty’s ship Renommeé, 58 Service in the East Indies, nearly drowned, storming fort Louis, 64 Service on the lakes of Canada, crosses the ice to York, Upper Canada, great sufferings, Huron Indians, 73 Second step of promotion, and conduct while an officer on half-pay, 82 Acquaintance with Dr Oudney, and his first expedition to Africa, 91 Second expedition to Africa, 94 Account of Mungo Park’s death, arrival at Soccatoo, his baggage seized by Bello, falls ill, Lander’s account of his death, 112
MAJOR LAING’S LIFE.
B and parentage, 117 Assists his father as a teacher, 118 Enters the Edinburgh volunteers as ensign, 118 Goes to Barbadoes, 119 Placed on halfpay, 120 Appointed Lieutenant and Adjutant, and goes to Sierra Leone, 120 Goes on an embassy to Kambia, 120 Description of the country, &c 125 Penetrates into the country of the Soolimas, 126 Description of his route, 130 Inoculates the children in Falaba, 136 Returns to Sierra Leone, 138 Sent to England with despatches, 139 Promoted to be a Major, leaves London for Tripoli on his way to Timbuctoo, 139—Marries Miss Warrington, 140—Leaves Tripoli, 140 —His journey, 142—His party attacked, and himself wounded, 143—Report of his death, 144.
Publications by the same Author.
1. A Sermon on the Return of Peace; preached at Holcome, Lancashire, on the 7th July 1814.
Bishop Law, then of Chester, and now of Bath and Wells, in a Letter to the Author, thus stated his opinion of the above discourse.
“R . S ,—I have read your sermon with great pleasure, and entire approbation. It is a composition every way respectable.”
2. A Narrative of the King’s Visit to Scotland, in August 1822.
3. A Treatise on Religion inserted in the Encyclopædia Edinensis.
The late venerable Sir Henry Moncrieff was pleased to express his unqualified approbation of the above Treatise.
4. A Catechism of the Evidences of the Christian Religion.
From the Edinburgh Saturday Evening Post “Into a small compass, and at a cheap price, the author has condensed the substance of many large treatises, which the interest of the subject has called forth The style is plain, simple, and forcible; and we venture to affirm that he who makes himself master of the volume, small as it is, will never be at a loss to give an answer to any man that asketh him a reason of the hope that is in him.”
Extract of a Letter from W. Grant, Esq. Manchester. “Your Catechism of the Evidences of Christianity is admirably calculated for the improvement of youth ”
5. A Classical Atlas, with a Memoir on Ancient Geography, dedicated to the Rector and Masters of the High School of Edinburgh. In 22 Maps, neatly coloured, and half-bound, 8vo. Price 6s.
From the Edinburgh Literary Gazette “This is one of the neatest, best arranged, and best executed little Manuals of Geography we have ever seen ”
From the Edinburgh Evening Post. “We know of no addition which has been made to the number of our useful School-Books, for years past, by many degrees so valuable as this Classical Atlas It is neat and portable, accurate, and cheap, and in all respects well fitted to accomplish its object ”
ERRATUM.
Page 23 for only, read nearly.
MEMOIR OF DR. OUDNEY,
THE AFRICAN TRAVELLER
A biography be the most attractive species of historical composition, as it gratifies the prying curiosity of our nature by making us acquainted with the origin and progress, and the retired habits, as well as the public pursuits, conduct, and character of distinguished individuals; yet there are few, comparatively speaking, of the human race, the actions of whose lives possess sufficient interest to engage the attention of their fellow-men, or are, on that account, worthy to be made the subject of biographical record. Had, therefore, Dr. Oudney’s name not been associated with that select band of enterprising men whose love of scientific adventure caused them to forego their native country and the endearments of home, and to wander in foreign lands, till they fell the victims of their own enthusiasm; we are ready to grant that, in all probability, notwithstanding his accomplishments and his worth, he would have been allowed to rest uninquired after with those millions of mankind who, the feverish bustle of life being over, have become “to dumb forgetfulness a prey.” But as he had the ardour of mind to undertake an expedition into the interior of Africa with the view of enlarging the dominions of science, and the perseverance to prosecute the enterprise, till, like others who had preceded him in the same career, he sacrificed his life in the performance of his duty; the incidents of his history have thereby acquired an interest, which, in other circumstances, they could not have possibly possessed; and, hence, a short memoir of his life cannot fail to afford a high gratification to a
numerous class of readers; and this it is the object of the following pages to supply.
Doctor Walter Oudney was born, of humble parentage, in the vicinity of Edinburgh, in the month of December, 1790. From his boyhood he discovered an uncommon disposition and aptitude for learning; so that he could scarcely be induced to take the necessary hours of repose. It does not appear, however, that at this early period he manifested that inclination for travelling or adventure which afterwards operated so powerfully on his mind, and which seems to have been entirely the result of his professional occupation as a surgeon in the Royal Navy. Having found the means of attending the medical classes in the university of Edinburgh, he applied himself with indefatigable ardour to his studies, though we are not aware that he gained any other distinction beyond that of the esteem of his class-fellows, and the approbation of the respective professors under whom he studied; with some of whom he continued on terms of intimate friendship till the day of his death. Having passed the necessary examinations, and taken his surgeon’s degree, he experienced little difficulty, during the late extensive and long continued war with France, of obtaining an appointment as a surgeon in the royal navy. In this capacity he was employed, during a series of years, on various stations, and among others in the Indian ocean; and throughout the whole of that important period of his life, while he was assiduous in the prosecution of his professional studies, he was, at the same time, particularly careful to increase the quantity, and to extend the sphere of his general knowledge. For this laudable purpose, he applied himself with diligence to the reading of the Greek and Latin classics, and made great progress in the acquisition of the French, the Italian, and several other of the modern languages of Europe.
When, by means of the noble perseverance and the heroic bravery of Great Britain and her allies, the terrible and desolating war which had broken out at the French revolution—a war which involved not only the whole of Europe, but the greater part of the world at large in its interests, and which, during a long series of years, was carried on with unexampled pertinacity and magnitude of effort, both
by sea and land—had ended in the subversion of the usurped power of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the restoration of the exiled princes of Bourbon to the royal authority which had been so long exercised by their ancestors, and when thereby peace was once more allowed to revisit the almost exhausted nations of Europe; Mr. Oudney, with thousands of his countrymen, had an opportunity of returning to his native country, and of revisiting the city in which he had received his education, and with which, consequently, he had many endearing and tenderly-cherished associations. He was now a naval surgeon on half pay, and, we believe, in the prospect of some prize-money; and, what must have been peculiarly agreeable to his mind, which was eminently gentle, sedate, and full of sensibility, he had an opportunity of witnessing the grateful and enthusiastic exultation which was exhibited by all ranks and descriptions of men for the gallant and signally important achievements, which, for the benefit and honour of the country, had been accomplished by the service with which he had been so long connected, and by which the dignity and the independence of the British empire had been so gloriously sustained.
Mr. Oudney, on his return, found his mother and his young sisters residing in Edinburgh, and with these near relations, who ever were, and continued to the last to be, the objects of his duteous affection and tender solicitude, he once more domesticated; and while he treated his mother, now advancing into the vale of years, with the respectful attention and kindness which filial regard alone can dictate, he was to his sisters at once a father and a brother He put them in the way of receiving a good education, was careful to impress upon their minds the lessons of virtue and religion, and introduced them to society of a higher grade than, without his assistance, they could have hoped to associate. Indeed, during the whole period of Mr. Oudney’s public service, his mother and his sisters had never ceased to engage his solicitous attention; and to assure them of his affection towards them, and of his desire to minister to their comfort, he had from time to time sent them money so long as his public duties kept him at a distance from their society This fact, so worthy of being recorded and remembered to Mr. Oudney’s honour, is a proof that his mind, which had been early
impressed, continued to be steadily actuated, by a sentiment, which has long formed a distinguishing feature in the character of the Scottish peasantry; namely, the obligation so deeply felt, and so generally acted upon by them, of contributing to the support of their aged and dependent relatives. To form and to cherish this generous principle in the minds of the young, constitutes a part of their religious education, and hence spring many of those pure and lofty virtues which are often seen exemplified even in the humblest walks of life, and which are nowhere depicted with more truth and feeling than in the immortal pages of Burns. This is a trait in the Scottish character which is truly ennobling, and which we fondly hope no change of manners will ever weaken or efface.
As soon as Mr. Oudney had settled in Edinburgh he resumed his professional studies, and having completed the curriculum, prescribed to those who wish to take the degree of Doctor of Medicine, he obtained that academical rank upon the first of August 1817, his inaugural dissertation being “De Dysenteria Orientali,” a subject to which his attention was doubtless directed by having had an opportunity of observing the character and treatment of that disease during the period of his naval practice. He now became a medical practitioner in Edinburgh, and was very careful to observe and record the symptoms and circumstances which, in that capacity, came under his notice. While he was thus employed, he was in the habit of imparting the result of his observations to his medical friends, and among others, to Dr. Abercrombie of this city, who, once and again, in his communications to the “Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal,” has mentioned Dr. Oudney with approbation, and incorporated his young friend’s information with that of his own. We likewise observe in the same Journal (for July 1820) a paper by Dr. Oudney, entitled, “Cases of Ileus from a twist of the colon,” and we are assured on the authority of one of the most intimate of his medical friends, that he frequently sent communications to the “London Medical Journal.” At this period he was assiduous in the study of chemistry and natural history. Botany, especially, engaged much of his attention; and, we believe, he was indebted to the late Dr. Scott for much valuable information on this interesting department of physical knowledge. He and Dr. Scott commenced a
