Introduction: growing research on youth in Siberia

Abstract

This special issue of Sibirica comprises a selection of papers presented at the conference "'Everything is still before you": being young in Siberia today ' (Halle, November 2003). This introduction opens with a short review of the conventional social-sciences approach toward youth (especially indigenous youth) as an 'object of concern'. A brief summary of the subsequent papers follows, highlighting several crosscutting themes: (1) the concept of youth, the process of becoming an adult and the expectations connected with it; (2) acquisition of knowledge within and outside formal education; and (3) sports, music and games as meaningful and creative spheres of social interaction. The introduction concludes with the argument that the ambit of 'Siberian' anthropology can be significantly enlarged through the integration of sociological and cultural studies approaches and methods into ethnographic inquiry.

Introduction: Generation P in the Tundra. Young People and the Russian North

“…In some cases, the social networking can be a surprisingly conscious strategy for young people in the Third World (e.g., Anders 2005). The "sense of responsibility" for their own family (Anderson 2004, Habeck 2004) is a social norm and even young people from wealthy families follow this norm as shown in the case of Mexican bourgeoisie by Lomnitz and Pérez-Lizaur (1989). Of course, such attitudes and practices of both Russian and Latin-American youth differ from the generally individualist Euro-American social practices.…”