Seen But Not Heard: Youth Citizenship Identities and Participation in Kuwait

Wednesday 08 December 2021 4:00pm to 5:30pm (on Zoom)

Hosted by the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science

Kuwait’s nationality and citizenship rules have been contentious since the country’s independence in 1961. The rightful claim to full citizenship rights in the oil-rich Gulf state is highly restricted and divided along lines of kinship, religion, gender, ethnicity and nationality, leaving the majority of Kuwait’s population excluded from many social privileges. Shaping youth civic identities through education and media messaging has been an important part of the state’s construction of nationalist narratives of Kuwaiti citizenship. While young people’s voices are largely absent from official discourses, they have been creating their own spaces and means of participation.

This webinar will present findings from the LSE Kuwait Programme project ‘Empowering Democratic Citizenship through Education: Exploring Rights-Based Approaches to Educational Policymaking in Kuwait’. The study explored the tensions between young people’s perspectives and Kuwaiti official discourses around citizenship identities, rights and participation. Findings are based on focus group discussions and interviews with more than 100 secondary school students and youth activists in Kuwait, as well as an analysis of Kuwaiti media outlets.

For more information visit https://www.lse.ac.uk/middle-east-centre/events/2021/citizenship-kuwait