Focusing on the case of urban youth styles in Duala, Cameroon, this research project analyzes the role of language, music and cultural practices in the construction of youth social identities in postcolonial Africa, at the crossroads of gender, class and race power relations. It also analyzes the forms and meanings of subaltern cosmopolitanisms at work in these multilingual and multicultural practices. The project is based on an ethnographic fieldwork in a youth cultural center located in two different neighborhoods, one in a middle and upper class neighborhood named Bonamoussadi, the other one in a poor, working-class neighborhood named New Bell. My research takes three different angles. First, I describe how gender, race class identities are constructed through the use of Camfranglais, a hybrid youth slang, in music performances and language practices among the youth. I take into account the multilingual and multi-semiotic dimensions of youth language practices. Second, I analyze the construction of cosmopolitan identities through these youth linguistic, bodily, musical practices, and their social meanings in the context of postcoloniality and globalization. I will also shed the light on the tensions between these discourses and youth multimodal practices observed in situ. Thus, I propose a more in-depth understanding of the ambivalencies of racialized and gendered youth subjectivities as produced by postcolonial power relationships in a globalized economy. This research can be of great interest for teachers, researchers, students, and policy makers in the field of urban youth culture and education. Indeed, this research aims to deconstruct racializing and simplistic representations of African urban youth by showing the great heterogeneity of this social group and the richness of youth cultural practices. The dissemination of research results outside academia through an ethnographic film will improve understandings of African languages and cultures among a large audience. I show how, through processes of 'whitening', these young people can negotiate in interaction among a variety of racialized and gendered subjective positionings. Third, I analyze the discursive processes of creating boundaries between languages, registers or styles in young people's reflexive discourses about language practices.
