Youth Futures: Connection and Mobility in the Asia Pacific

Professor Fethi Mansouri welcomed attendees to the Youth Futures conference over 15 to 16 November 2018 at Deakin Downtown.

Youth are a critical demographic cohort at the centre of increased global interconnectivity who shape and are shaped by new forms of engagement, relationality and transnational solidarity. Whilst globalising processes are bringing individuals closer together than ever before in particular through digital platforms and social media, it nevertheless remains a challenge conceptually and empirically to capture the hugely diverse range of experiences, opportunities and outcomes that characterise youth living in the Asia Pacific region.

This conference captured these dynamics and their inherent related tensions through the three streams of: Mobilities, Generations, Futures; Citizenship, Activism, Disruption; and Inter/multicultures, Transnationalism, Diasporas. These streams reflected some of the key challenges and opportunities facing young people today.