Senegal has experienced rapid economic growth and expansion of access to education within recent decades. Yet due to a stagnation in labor markets and the rising relevance of the informal sector, growing cohorts of educated Senegalese youth struggle to find work.

How do young adults born in Senegal react to broken promises regarding their future?

How do the adverse economic conditions affect the life experiences, aspirations and social political engagement of young Senegalese adults?

The Authors conducted three waves of semi-structured thematic interviews with biographical components with young adults born in Senegal between 1977 and 1997; with data collection taking place in early 2021, late 2021, and 2024. Of note being that these collection periods occurred both during the Covid-19 Pandemic and youth protests against President Macky Sall’s unconstitutional third-term attempt

Working Paper 63 describes the motivation, study design, and data collection, summarizing challenges and opportunities encountered by an international research team producing decolonial knowledge on respondents’ life courses.

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