For more than two years, UT Professor Brian Barber has followed Egyptian youth as they have taken to the streets and social media to achieve a more just and fair government.
Barber has been on the ground in Egypt eight times since January 2011 to document their struggles in the ongoing revolution.
In a recently released article, he profiles some of the young Egyptians he has interviewed repeatedly, including males, females, Cairo residents, Alexandrians, Muslims, Christians, and seasoned and occasional activists. He shares their experiences about their revolutionary persistence and why they still have the energy and resolve to act and to sacrifice, even after the series of disappointments they’ve endured since their initial hopes were kindled.
The article, “What the Young People of Egypt Learned: A Close-up Look at Four Young Egyptians Who Were Present at the Revolution,” was published in Zocalo Public Square, an online information exchange initiative of the New America Foundation, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute.
To read the entire article, visit Zocalo Public Square’s website.
“Events continue to unfold daily and dramatically in Egypt,” Barber said. “My ongoing contacts with the youth reveal that they feel exhausted and bewildered about the widespread abuses that are taking place of late, and that they are fearful and uncertain about the future of the Egypt they have sacrificed so hard for.”
Barber is founding director of the UT Center for the Study of Youth and Political Conflict. He is a professor of child and family studies in the UT College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences and specializes in the study of youth and families who experience political conflict, with a current focus on Palestine and Egypt.
For his work in Palestine and Egypt, Barber has received $1.5 million in grants from the Swiss-based Jacobs Foundation. The money funds multiyear, multimethod studies of youth and families in both regions, including interviews with scores of individuals, in an effort to discern the impact of political conflict on personal and social development.
To learn more about the UT Center for Youth and Political Conflict, visit the website.
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CONTACTS:
Lola Alapo (865-974-3993, lola.alapo@tennessee.edu)
Brian Barber (865-974-5316, bbarber1@utk.edu)