This episode hosts a discussion reflecting on the meeting points between narrative and adolescence. The episode seeks to flesh out how stories are used by adolescents, and told about adolescents, and what differences this makes to their lives. The participants debate the ethics of storytelling, the relationship between stories and empathy, and what makes people able to tell stories about themselves in the first place. As forms and nexuses of power, stories have a deep hold not only on how adolescents understand themselves, but how others understand adolescents. How might the power of stories, then, be harnessed to improve the lives of Africa’s adolescents?

This episode was recorded during a three-day workshop on the theme of Understanding Adolescence in African Contexts, hosted at Rhodes House in Oxford.

Participants

Elleke Boehmer is Professor of World Literatures in English at the University of Oxford, and a prize-winning novelist and short-story writer.

Oluwafemi Oyebode is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Birmingham.

Caroline Adjimi is a doctoral researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Hermann Wittenberg is an Associate Professor in the Department of English where he teaches courses in Ecocritical Writing, South African Literature and Digital Culture.