Intersectionality as a Framework for Understanding Adolescent Vulnerabilities in Low and Middle Income Countries: Expanding Our Commitment to Leave No One Behind
Date
2021-09-01
Authors
Baird, Sarah
Camfeld, Laura
Ghimire, Anita
Abu Hamad, Bassam
Jones, Nicola
Pincock, Kate
Woldehanna, Tassew
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Abstract
Given increasing policy attention to the consequences of youth marginalisation for
development processes, engaging with the experiences of socially marginalised
adolescents in low- and middle-income countries (including those who are out of
school, refugees, married, with disabilities or adolescent parents) is a pressing prior-
ity. To understand how these disadvantages—and adolescents’ abilities to respond
to them—intersect to shape opportunities and outcomes, this Special Issue draws
on the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence conceptual framework which
accounts for gender roles and norms, family, community and political economy
contexts in shaping adolescents’ capabilities. Implicitly critiquing a focus within
youth studies on individual agency, the articles advance our understanding of how
adolescents’ marginalisation is shaped by their experiences, social identities and
the contexts in which they are growing up. An analytical framework foregrounding
intersectionality and collective capabilities ofers a means to politicise these fndings
and challenge uncritical academic celebration of individual agency as the means to
address structural problems.
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Keywords
Adolescence , Gender , Sustainable Development Goals , Capabilities , Marginalisation , Child marriage , Refugees , LMICs