Conference 23.-24. November 2001
Europäische Akademie, Berlin
Last year the idea turned up of making a book about the situation and role of young people in the Baltic Sea Area. It seemed obvious that the changes of the last ten years hadparticularly strong effects on youth. Can the development of the region then be predicted by youthful behaviour and attitudes? Does youth participate in social and political progress? How do young people define their roles in their national and regional environments?
The articles we collected cover a large variety of aspects that will give answers to our questions. Now the aim of the conference is to present the single issues and to discuss the contradicting as well as the corresponding results. From those discussions we hope to develop some summarising hypotheses about the future development of the Baltic Sea Region, which will be presented in the concluding chapter of the anthology.
Youth often is conceptualised as agents of social and political change. We intent to start from this idea when we discuss the single contributions to the book. Do the empirical data support the idea of youth as the motor of social change? What are the social conditions for this role of youth?
For the schedule of the conference we chose different aspects of adolescent participation and identity building, that are supposed to build the focus of the single panels. Two authors of our book will guide the discussion of each panel by presenting their results (20 min) and relating those results to the idea of change and stability.
The contributions to the conference have been published. Please check out:
Valeska Henze, Valeska Maier-Wörz, Henri Vogt (eds.). Youth around the Baltic Sea: Sharing Differences – Discovering Common Grounds. Örebro Studies in Political Science: Örebro Universitet, 2004. [abstract]
Programme
Friday, 23.November 2001:
10.00 – 12.00
Check-in and distribution of information at the Europäische Akademie
12.00
Welcome and Opening
12.30–14.30
I. panel: Youth and European identity
Joakim Ekman: Germans and Europeans? Support for the European Political Community among East German and West German Youth.
Carsten Schymik: The Case of Scandinavian Youth opposition to European integration
14.30-15.00
Coffee break
15.00-17.00
II. panel: Youth and national identity
Saale Taul: Post-modernisation as a two edged sword? Discourses of reception of campaign Integrating Estonia
Henri Vogt: Res publica among youth in Finland and Estonia
17.00–19.00
III. panel: Youth and extremism
Rene Karpantschof: New Right and antiracist protest in post cold-war Denmark
Markus Mathyl: The Development of a Nationalistic Counterculture in Postperestrojka-Russia
20.00
Dinner
Saturday, 24.November 2001:
10.00-12.00
IV. panel: Baltic Sea Identity ?
Kari Paakkunainen: How Young People write about their Political Homes and Spaces Around the Baltic Sea
Kaarina Williams: Social and political development in the Baltic Sea Region and the emergence of a common political space
12.00-13.30
Lunch break
13.30-15.30
Concluding discussion: Future of the Baltic Sea Region