Confronting Afrophobia: A Phenomenological Inquiry on the Marginalization of African-Canadian Youth in Canadian Institutions

In this qualitative paper, we address, from the perspectives of youth workers, how Afrophobia marginalizes African-Canadian youth in youth-serving organizations and institutions. Using phenomenology and online data from Youth Research and Evaluation Exchange (YouthREX’s) Virtual Café, we therefore interrogate from the above perspectives, how youth sector professionals (YSPs) including youth workers themselves, challenge or enable Afrophobia-caused youth marginality within the Ontario youth sector. With 1,790 registered members, the Virtual Café is an online Community of Practice (CoP) forum hosted and moderated by YouthREX. Our findings show that culturally and socially conscious YSPs are vital in combating Afrophobia at the frontline and at the policy levels. The findings also highlight systemic obstacles faced by YSPs combating Afrophobia and the strategies they use to push back on these obstacles. Using these findings and phenomenology (as a self-responsible beginning), we highlight effective intervention strategies already used by some YSPs, and from our analysis.

Categorised in: Academic Literature