Young Men and Islam in the 1990s: Rethinking an Intergenerational Perspective

Interest in the question of youth and Islam in West Africa stems from the overwhelming demographic weight of youth and their relatively recent incursion into the public domain, as well a wave of Islamic revivalism that has swept across Africa from the late 1970s on. In this paper, we propose to examine the sociopolitical role of young men in Islamic revivalist movements that occurred in urban centers in Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Senegal in the 1980-1990s. Such movements were particularly popular among secularly educated young men who attended French-speaking schools. While the role of young men in revivalist movements suggests new configurations of authority and charisma, their religious agency remains closely embedded within relationships that extend across generations. Here, we examine instances of conflicts between generations and pay attention to sites of negotiation, such as mosques and voluntary associations.